by Robert Adams
"The royal party remained for two months in York, then moved on in the then-regular circuit, but still I was unable to break away, so I finally dispatched Emmett—provided with the royal document—as my emissary, to Whyffler Hall that he might examine the console and commence certain needed modifications we had discussed. When at long last I gained a respite from my many duties, I journeyed north and joined Emmett here."
"This hall, built in stages, had but just been finished then, Bass. The present formal gardens had not even yet been sketched, so it was fairly easy for us to pace off the distances, compare them with our two memories of the distances involved on that other world, and make the appropriate settings on the console. Sir James had died of camp fever in the War of the Three Marriages, and Whyffler Hall was then held by his grandson, young John Whyffler, who was Sir Francis' grandfather. Naturally, the young man was terribly curious about all that was going on, but be also was a very proper young man and never intruded, making it a point to mind his own business and to see that his family and household did the same."
"Finally, one night after Emmett had been at work on the console and his calculations for near three months, we sat in this very chamber, talking privily over an ewer of John Whyffler's best ale. He had been in an increasing sweat and fret for weeks, brusque in his speech, and short-tempered on all occasions."
"'Weel, Ken, we'll be tryin' it an hour arter dawn, on the morrow. By sich calculation as meself can make, an' as me memory serve me, oor time be about six hours ahead of theirn, so the lab ne'er will iver be missed.'"
"Never missed?' I said. 'But Emmett, surely when the morning comes, they'll notice a missing building?"
"'By St. Sola's toenails . . .'" he began, peevishly, then stopped and smiled slowly. "'It's sorry I'm bein', Ken, but the strain on me poor mind hae been sommat fierce, these last moons; ye dinna ken, I see. We be here in the past, e'en should we hold yon lab here for years, it'll be as the bare blinkin' o' y'r e'e to the folk in that world.'"
"'No, Emmett,' I disagreed, 'it's you who don't understand. You never really knew much about history—the history of our home world—so I don't think you ever have understood just what happened to us, just where we really are. Emmett, this is not our world we were projected into, not the history of our world we've been living, all these years. Emmett, we can only be on a parallel world, so what is projected here from that other world must be here for good and all. Just look how long the console has been here, yet you said that it could be expected to snap back to whence it and we came within hours or at most days after our arrival. Doesn't its continued presence tell you something?'"
"The Irishman shrugged, shaking his full head of hair, his stiff mustachios aquiver. "'Y' may be a-havin' the right of 't, Ken . . . y' may be wrong, too. Aye, lang years has it been . . . here, but how are we tae ken the relation of oor time tae that of yon world we quitted, sae lang or short a time agone? There, in that sad world, the beam of that bitch's heat-stunner still may be a-cracklin' the air neath those computers, y' know? All what I may say for sairtin sure be that yon console still be a-drawin' poower frae that world . . . or frae somm'eres. An' wi' luck an' the blessin's o' the saints, it's bringin' that lab tae us we will be.'"
"And to this very day, Bass," sighed the aged Archbishop, "I know not which of us—me or Emmett—was right in our suppositions. But that night I issued an order that all activity on the north side of the hall be suspended until the nones of the next day."
"As the sun rose like a new penny out of the eastern mists, I was in my place on the battlements atop the tower keep, whilst Emmett did some last-minute tinkering and calculating in the torch-lit cellar . . . He had my wristwatch—his own having been battered to ruin in some long-done skirmish—so I could only cast glances at the sundial."
"At length, he came panting up the steep stairs to join me upon the donjon roof and peer anxiously betwixt the ancient merlons, snapping glances at the watch on his hairy wrist. Finally, he devoted all his attention to the face of the instrument, then he looked up."
"'It's time, Ken. The console's on automatic, it should switch onnnn . . . now!'"
The old man lifted the ewer and poured the last of the ale into his mug. Impatiently, Foster said, "And? Then what, Hal? What happened, dammit?"
The Archbishop smiled, while plunging a loggerhead into the brew. "Patience, Bass, patience. My throat's getting dry." When he had sipped at the steaming ale, he leaned back, wrapping his cold hands about the warm mug, closed his eyes, and went on with the tale.
"What happened, you ask. Nothing, friend Bass, not really. Oh, I thought to see a brief flicker of moving, brown water, flanked by square, blockish buildings, for an eye-blink of time overlying the hall and grounds, but then it was gone—if ever it was in anything or anyplace other than my memory-nudged mind."
"Emmett began to curse then, foul, frightful, blasphemous curses snarled out of a terror-spawned rage. Spinning about, he raced down the several flights of stairs—I following—until he once more stood before the console. He beat at the device with his fists, kicked at it with his booted feet . . . for all the good it did him, or me."
"He kept trying, through every day, two or three or four times each day, for a week and more, before he finally admitted defeat. Then he began to make rapid plans for a quick return to Ireland. At our constrained parting, I gifted him most of the remaining capsules, retaining only a brace of them for myself. I never have seen or heard from him since that long-ago day that he and his retainers rode west from York."
"After a reign very long for this world, Arthur II died after a lengthy illness. Unfortunately, no one of his sons outlived him—Henry, Edwin, Phillip, Edward, Patric, Harold, all died before him from one cause or another. But Henry, who had been the eldest, had had two sons, one of whom had succeeded his father as Prince of Wales, and that Prince, Richard, succeeded his grandsire as Richard IV."
"As I lowered the crown onto Richard's head, I had a presentiment that that act presaged dark days for this realm, Bass, nor was I wrong. Richard was not a good king; though loving and pious, he was weak. His scheming wife and her Roman coterie soon had him and England dancing to their own tunes; the nation's wealth soon was flowing—nay, rushing, torrent-wise—into their greedy hands and, through them, into the insatiable coffers of the Roman Papacy."
"There had been anti-Roman sentiment abroad in all of England since the very first of the Priests' Plagues, Bass, and, of course, under Richard it grew apace, 'mongst nobles and commons alike. Nor did a rumor that Queen Angela had persuaded her royal spouse to journey to Rome, sign over England to her uncle, the Pope, and then accept it back as a Papal feoff help matters at all. It was only by unremitting luck that we avoided civil war as long as we did."
"When Richard died—and it was not murder, Bass, no matter what you may have heard to the contrary; rather, it was simply a resurgence of the strain of bodily infirmity that had killed Richard's father and almost taken off his grandsire several times—and King Arthur III was crowned, it were safe to state that all the land breathed a collective sigh of relief, for Arthur had never kept a secret of his personal disenchantment with the grasping ways of the Roman Papacy, his utter loathing of his sister-in-law and her clique, or his impatience with his brother's weak will."
"The nation rallied to Arthur unrestrainedly, Bass. The mourning period for Richard was scandalously short, and few paid it more than mere lip service. Arthur was only eighteen, but in most ways he was far more the man and the King than his brother ever had been. He openly scorned the machinations of certain factions to wed him to Angela, his brother's still-scheming widow, remarking in her very presence a distaste for half-eaten apples, before sending her and all her pack from court."
"It was not until Angela dropped her shoat that Arthur decided to wed, choosing the daughter of Lothair, Hilke, and announcing to all within earshot that no Italian bastard ever would sit the throne of the Tudors."
Bass nodded. "Yes, I've heard th
at rumor, too, Hal. Is there any truth in it?"
The eyes of the Archbishop narrowed. "Possibly. Though Angela, of course, made much public show of fealty and devotion to Richard, it was well-known in court circles that she despised him, and several courtiers and foreigners were bruited at one time or another to be her chosen bedmates, most notably Duque Tomaso del Monteleone, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies."
"Too, the child bears no resemblance at all to the Tudors—being swarthy and black-haired and -eyed, with high cheekbones and a hooked beak of a nose that looks not at all like either his mother or his supposed paternal line, but quite a bit like the House of del Monteleone in general and the late Duque in particular."
While reheating his own ale, Foster asked, "Is that the chap Arthur had tortured to death early in the war and then sent the corpse back to London in a pipe of brandy?"
His old eyes sparkling, the Archbishop rasped a dry chuckle. "A bit of psychological warfare that succeeded too well, that, Bass. A few weeks after poor Arthur learned of the murders of his wife and children, the Duque was captured during a cavalry action, but he was seriously wounded and died just as he reached the King's camp. Arthur had the still-warm body stripped, flogged, burned, racked ferociously, and terribly mutilated. When the corpse gave every indication of having succumbed not to wounds of battle but to protracted torture, he had the thing immersed in brandy and sent it back to Angela along with a letter in which he assured her that he had now proof of his charges of adultery and bastardy."
"The farce was intended only to intimidate the so-called Regent and her folk, but now most of the army and nation believe it and Arthur is fancied a cold, vengeful, implacable man, one not to be trifled with."
Foster suddenly found his throat tight, but asked the question anyway. "Hal, your . . . your friend, Emmett, how old would he look, by now?"
The old man shrugged. "No older than he did when last we parted, late-twentyish . . . unless he lost his capsules, again."
"And if he did lose them?" probed Foster. "Younger than do I, by far," smiled the Archbishop. "Possibly his appearance would be about your age. But why ask you?"
Foster thrust a hand into his pouch and closed his fingers about the ring he had prized from the clammy hand of the dead Irishman. "You'll see why soon enough, Hal. But, please tell me. What college did Emmett graduate from, and what year? Can you recall?"
The older man frowned in concentration. "M.I.T., I recall that, but the year, hmmm . . . Ninety-seven, or was it ninety-six? No, I think it was ninety-eight, Bass. Yes, that was it, nineteen-ninety-eight."
Slowly, Foster drew the worn, golden ring from his pouch, cupped the bauble in his palm, and extended the hand to his companion. "Could . . . then . . . this be . . . be your friend's ring, Hal?"
CHAPTER 12
The winter had been long and harsh, but at length it ended. The hills round about Whyffler Hall traded their coats of glistening white for verdant mantles of bright-green grass with splashes of bold colors where early-blooming flowerlets burst out among the protrusions of weathered rock. Feathered clouds of birds descended from skies of blue and fleecy-white to perch upon the budding branches of the ancient, huge-boled trees, chirping and trilling avian tales of their long, winter sojourns in Languedoc, Andalusia and Africa. The season of growth had commenced . . . and the season of death.
With the melting of the snows, Foster sent out gallopers, and soon knots of well-armed riders were converging upon the hall, all prepared and provisioned for yet another season of war. But this year they came from both sides of the ill-defined border, those from the north of it completely uninvited and none too welcome by their English cousins . . . at first.
A council among the Archbishop of York, Duke Parian, Foster, and the leader of the Scots volunteers, Andrew, Laird of Elliot—a scar-faced, broken-nosed man of apparent middle years, whose bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows overhung deep-blue, predatory eyes; despite a noticeable limp, the tall, lithe Scot moved with the grace of a panther and he sat his fully trained stallion like a centaur, controlling the iron-gray beast solely with knee pressure and voice, since his left arm ended in a brass cap and hook—settled the matter and then Foster met with his officers.
When all the English officers had taken places about the chamber, Captain of Dragoons Squire Guy Dodd posed the question that was on the minds of all his comrades: "M'lord Forster, Bass, when d'ye get tae chivvy them black-hairted bastids back tae their kennels?"
"You don't!" Foster snapped. "They're damned good fighters—as you all well know. And when has His Majesty's Army ever had enough horse, eh?"
"But . . ." protested Captain Dodd, "they be Scots, thrice-domned Scots!"
"And, as such, they are no longer our enemies, Guy. The full agreements are not yet drawn or signed, but the King and the Kingdom of Scotland now are allied to Arthur and England. There is to be peace and amity between England and Scotland; both Kings and the high nobles all are agreed upon it."
The other captain in the chamber, grizzled old Melvin Hall, snorted. "Y'r pardon, m'lord, in an thousun years an' more they's been nought save war on t' border. An' like it'll e'er be so, kings and great nobles be domned!"
Most of the assembled borderers nodded assent to the verity of Hall's words, and a squinty-eyed lieutenant asked, "M'lord, did thet brother-murderin' Jim Stewart, then, send yon pack o' cur-dogs?"
Foster shook his head. "No, these men were gathered by the man who commands them, Laird Andrew. It seems that the Elliot agrees with Captain Hall, in some respects; therefore, to prevent border trouble this year, he impressed every hothead and fire-eater he could clap hands to, formed them into a troop, and brought them south to fight for—not against—King Arthur."
"The Reichsherzog, the Archbishop, the representatives of the King, and I feel his actions are commendable and he and his troop have been accepted by us for our King's service. I shall expect you gentlemen to set a good example for your men in accepting these former enemies among you with good grace."
It was not all that easy, of course, nor had Foster or any of the others thought for one minute that it would be. But, after several floggings and a couple of salutary hangings, the men got the message.
"I hate like hell to leave you here alone, Krystal, without even Nugai to look out for you. But both Hal and Wolf swear you'll be safe. The entrenchments and guns will continue to be garrisoned and manned at least until the negotiations with the Scots are completed, and like as not long afterward. But Wolf says that even should Crusaders land on the coast, march this far inland, and invest and take the hall, you'd have nought to fear, since you're legally Marchioness of Velegrad and, as delicate as are the current relations between Rome and the Empire, the very last thing the Church desires is an incident that would tend to worsen those relations."
"And when I tried to get Hal to promise to send you down to York, he flatly refused me, saying that you and the baby would be better fed and healthier here."
Krystal nodded. "Yes, there was a terrible outbreak of typhoid there last summer, honey, and food still is scarce and dear in York, so Hal is probably right. He usually is, you know. They say that experience is the best teacher, and let's face it, he's had something over two hundred years of experience."
"But I'll be all right, Bass. Of course, I'll miss Nugai. I'll miss him almost as much as I'll miss you." Her soft, slender hand crept into his broad, callused palm. "But I'll have Meg and Polly and Trina here with me, and we'll manage just fine, dear."
Foster was vastly relieved that his wife had burdened him with none of the importunings to accompany him south that she had in the past. He could well imagine the slimy, stinking, hellish pestholes which the camps circling London were certain to be after the wintering of thousands of decidedly unhygienic men in them and he wanted his wife and son nowhere near to them. It was bad enough that he and his horsemen must live in them at least long enough to map out the strategy for the season's campaigning.
Immedia
tely after the gentlemen-officers were all mounted, Freiherr Sebastian Foster, Markgraf of Velegrad, Lord Commander of King Arthur III's Horse and Tendant of the Fort and Estate of Whyffler Hall, called for the stirrup cup. When he had drained off the contents of the ancient silver-mounted horn, he drew his fine Tara-steel blade, brought his leopard-spotted destrier to a sustained rear, and saluted the assembled ladies. All save his wife oohed and aaahed his courtesy and horsemanship. Krystal gave him back an amused smile, then turned to graciously accept the compliments of the other ladies upon her noble husband's manners, skills and dashing appearance.
Amenities thus discharged, Foster nudged the fettlesome stallion over to where stood old Geoff Musgrave and Henry Turnbull, who would stay behind to see to the estate and the hall proper. Keeping a tight rein on Bruiser—the war-trained charger had become safe enough around the familiar-smelling men of Foster's campaign staff and entourage, but would deign to trust very few other humans and was likely to bite or to kick, as the mood took him—Foster shucked his mailed gauntlet and offered his hand to each of the men.
"Well, Geoff, old friend, I'm off to war again. Pray God, for the last time. I've no instructions to give you—either of you—for you and Henry between you manage Sir Francis' holdings far better than do I."
The Estate Warden, Geoffrey Musgrave, shook his scarred, grizzled head, "Och, nae, Sir Bass, y'r worship shouldnae say sich. Y' need but tae learn a bit more an' y'll be—"
