The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘From Hecht?’

  ‘Urd no. The Meister must be the last to know of this.’

  That shocks me.

  ‘Oh, I know how that must sound. Only … take a seat, Otto. There’s a little story I must tell you. A story from the days when Meister Hecht and I were young. When we were both Reisende like yourself.’

  ‘Wait,’ I say, not wishing to be rude, but conscious that unless I get a word in now, it might be some while before I can. ‘Why mustn’t Hecht know. Is this—’

  ‘The story,’ old Schnorr says, and gestures towards the chair again. ‘The story will explain it all.’

  I sit and wait, as old Schnorr seems to gather up his memories, his eyes, resting in that old, deeply lined face, seeming to take on a strange, youthful clarity.

  ‘It was long ago,’ he begins, coming closer, his hands drawing lines in the air as he speaks. ‘One hundred and fourteen years ago, to be precise. Four-Oh years, that is. As I said, I was a Reisende back then, based in Swabia, in the middle of the twelfth century.’

  ‘Barbarossa,’ I say, grinning with surprise. ‘You were assigned to Barbarossa!’

  ‘I was indeed,’ Schnorr answers, his eyes smiling at the memory. ‘And a grand place and time it was to be, I can tell you. Why, my young blood thrilled to be there alongside that heroic figure. And heroic he truly was. Only, well, my companion back there did not share my view. My fellow agent was, how shall I put it, more than a little sceptical about the Emperor.’

  ‘Sceptical?’ The idea shocks me. For I too have met with Barbarossa and rode with him on campaign, and a more honest and admirable man I’ve rarely met. If Nevsky is one face of kingship, then the Emperor Frederick the First, known more commonly as Frederick ‘Rothbart’ or ‘Barbarossa’ – ‘red beard’ – is the other: one of the few men to whom the epithet ‘heroic’ fits naturally.

  ‘By the way, I saw you once,’ Schnorr says. ‘At Gelnhausen, in the north. You would not have seen me, of course. I stood at the back of the Hall, in the shadows, but—’

  Again, I am astonished. ‘You were there? When Frederick made me a companion?’

  ‘I was there. But to the matter in hand, my companion. He was based in the castle of Staufen, Frederick’s favourite castle, in the south of his domain. I guess you’d say he was a sleeper. As such he saw much less of Frederick than I. But there was a reason for that. You see, he had shown these tendencies before.’

  ‘Tendencies?’

  Schnorr looks down, as if searching for the right words. ‘Tendencies to, well, to disagree with policy. To question things. To …’ Schnorr sniffs. ‘In short, he put the Meister’s nose firmly out of joint, and as a result was sent to Staufen to kick his heels. Under my supervision, of course.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t need a name, Otto. If I tell you his name, you might let it slip some time. And then Hecht would know.’

  ‘Hecht was Meister back then?’

  ‘Urd no. It’s like I said. Hecht was a mere Reisende then. Being groomed, no doubt, but an agent like the rest of us. No, Hudner was Meister then. Irmin Hudner. A good man, if unimaginative.’

  I stare at Schnorr, realising suddenly how little I know of our history, how centred my knowledge is in the Now.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continues, ‘things came to a head. My companion argued openly with Frederick over some trivial matter … about how Frederick treated his servants – as if servants should be treated like nobility! – and I had to jump back and sort things out. It was easily changed, but Meister Hudner had had enough. He called a special meeting of the Elders – even Gehlen was wheeled in, in his sealed tank of course – and they decided to rescind his authority, in effect, to ban him from travelling in the ages.’

  ‘I see. And what did he do?’

  ‘He appealed. Asked for exile.’

  ‘Exile?’

  ‘In the past. In nineteenth-century Prague, as it happens. He had been there and liked the place. Met a woman, it seems. Maybe part of it was due to that, but anyway, the Elders met a second time and agreed. Hecht, it seems, made a special plea for the man.’

  ‘They were friends?’

  ‘Oh, like brothers. Like you and Ernst, so I understand.’

  Too like us, I think, only I don’t say that.

  ‘So they allowed it?’

  ‘They did. And there he is, to this day. Or should I say, there he was. He’s dead now. Time-dead. Only, of course, you can always go back and see him.’

  ‘Fine. But why should I want to do that?’

  ‘Because he’s met Kolya.’

  I stare at Schnorr. ‘You knew this?’

  ‘I found it out. While you were with Freisler, back at Poltava. Or should I say young Horst did. He observed Kolya visiting our exiled friend.’ Schnorr smiles. ‘You should thank the boy sometime, Otto. He clearly wanted to do his best for you.’

  ‘I will,’ I say. But my pulse is racing and my brain …

  ‘Forgive me, Meister. You say I should go and see him. Only, how? If Hecht is not to know, then—’

  ‘The women,’ old Schnorr answers, then wanders past me, going to his desk. ‘Go ask the women. Tell them what you need. And tell them … tell them Hecht is not to know. They’ll understand.’

  Making my way back to my room, my head is in a spin. Tell them not to tell Hecht? It’s unheard of. Hecht knows everything, surely? But Schnorr spoke as if he knew what he was talking about.

  And it’s only when I’m back in my room, the door closed behind me, that I realise that, distracted by what old Schnorr was telling me, I forgot to ask him what I meant to ask.

  I call him straight away, but he’s gone. Young Horst is there, however, and – after thanking him – I ask him, staring down at his face in the screen.

  ‘It’s been bothering me,’ I say. ‘This business of Kolya kidnapping his own ancestors.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It’s just … I don’t see what use it would be. I mean, they’re all taken after they’ve passed on their seed, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Then what use are they? Surely he needs to protect them before they pass on their seed, not after? To make sure that his genetic line remains unbroken.’

  Horst smiles. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Then …?’

  ‘Don’t you see it? They’re his expendable selves. They’ve served their purpose genetically. Therefore he can use them. To protect the others. To ride shotgun, if you like, down the years.’

  I laugh. ‘Is that what he’s doing?’

  ‘It looks like it. I didn’t see it at first, but …’

  ‘Can I come over?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then wait for me there. I’ll be ten minutes.’

  230

  Only I’m not. Because there’s been another development. Freisler has come back from Poltava to announce that there’s to be a parley. Peter himself has offered to meet Charles on the morning of the battle, to discuss a possible peace.

  From Peter’s point of view it makes a lot of sense. Now that history’s been tinkered with, the odds are stacked high against him. But why on earth should Charles want to make a deal with Peter when he can crush him on the battlefield?

  And he wants to crush him. To inflict the maximum humiliation on his rival.

  ‘It won’t happen,’ I say.

  ‘Not as things stand,’ Hecht says. ‘But you’re supposed to be meeting Charles, aren’t you? The night before the battle, alone in his tent.’

  I laugh. ‘You think I can persuade him?’

  Hecht shakes his head. ‘No. But you could kill him.’

  I look down. It would not be the first time I’ve been used as an assassin, but I don’t feel good about this. I don’t feel … right. And it has nothing really to do with Charles, who’s a murderous little bastard at the best of times. Besides, they’ll only change it back. They’re bound to.

  Whoever they are.

  I meet
Hecht’s eyes. ‘Is that what you want me to do? Kill him?’

  ‘Maybe. But not yet. There’s time and plenty to deal with Charles. First we need to find out what’s happening with our agents.’

  Hecht’s very calmness makes me think that he knows something. It’s such a contrast from his earlier urgency that I’m pretty much convinced that something’s happened to make him feel more relaxed. Only what?

  ‘Go and see Zarah,’ Hecht adds after a moment. ‘She’ll brief you. Then report back to me once you know what’s happening. And Otto … take no silly risks, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ And I bow my head and hurry off to do his bidding.

  Zarah’s waiting for me in the prep room next to the platform. As ever, she is immaculately groomed, her uniform smartly pressed, her hair freshly brushed and tied back from her face.

  ‘So?’ I ask. ‘What do I need to know?’

  She hands me a thick winter coat and gloves and a large sealed envelope. I look down at the envelope, then back at her. ‘Do I open this now or later?’

  ‘Later. When you’re back there.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Our agents are staying at an inn to the north of the town. Next door to the stables, close by the river.’

  ‘Which is where precisely, and when?’

  She answers in a deadpan. ‘Baturin. November 1708.’

  ‘Baturin! In November! But …’

  ‘That’s where they are. And when.’

  I swallow. ‘Shit!’ On the third of November, Baturin will be taken by Menshikov’s troops and the ancient Cossack capital burned to the ground, not a single person spared.

  But Zarah only smiles. ‘You’ll be all right. But remember. Open the letter the moment you’ve jumped through.’

  ‘But Baturin …’

  ‘Things have changed,’ she says.

  ‘Anything else I need to know?’

  ‘No. Read the letter. It’s all in there.’

  I put on the coat, pull on the gloves and embrace her. ‘Starke,’ I say, pressing my lips gently to her forehead – ‘strength’ – then turn and make my way to the platform.

  231

  One moment I am standing in the brightness of the circle, the next in darkness, mist swirling around me, snow beneath my booted feet.

  I am on a bridge, the water flowing dark and powerful beneath me. To my left an oil lamp burns noisily, its flame gusting in the night wind, melting the snow that falls on the bridge surrounding it, yet as I turn, looking to my right, my mouth opens in surprise.

  This isn’t Baturin, this is Prague! For there, not twenty paces distant, is the unmistakable wedge-like shape of the Bridge Tower. I am on the Charles Bridge, above the mighty Voltava, in the ancient capital of Bohemia.

  And I realise instantly what has happened. Old Schnorr has had a word, Zarah has arranged it and, even as I tear open the envelope, I half know what to expect.

  There’s a thousand Czech krona – in tens and twenties – and a single sheet of paper. Unfolding it I find handwritten on it a name – Jakub Schikaneder – and an address – 11, Rasnovka. And there, at the foot of the page are old Schnorr’s initials and a date – 4 December 1892.

  Rasnovka, if I remember correctly, is in the Jewish quarter, to the north of the Old Town. Twenty minutes’ walk at most. And though I don’t have much Czech, they speak enough German here for me to get by. Prague at this time – indeed, at any time – is a very cosmopolitan place.

  I set off at once, making my way under the great gatehouse and past a dozing guard. The gas lamps are lit, burning dimly in those tall but narrow thoroughfares, yet the streets are virtually empty. The dark metal of the tramlines shows through the snow that covers the cobbled surface, but of the trams themselves there’s no sign. I’ve no clue what time it is, but it must be late. Very late.

  Flurries of snow blow into my face as I make my way through, and as I walk I ask myself where I’ve heard the name Schikaneder before, and whether I’ll recognise him somehow, perhaps by some familiarity in his face.

  The Old Town square is empty, the two great gothic towers of the Church of Our Lady before Tyn silhouetted against a bright full moon, which rests like a giant pearl on the cushion of a blue-black cloud. The sight is magnificent and I turn and smile, looking about me, understanding in an instant why he should choose this place for exile.

  I hurry on, heading east along Celetna. At the Powder Gate I stop, hearing the bell toll three, then stand aside as a coach and horses flashes past, throwing up slush and snow in its wake, the driver leaning over his horses, cracking a short whip, while his master, a big, heavily bearded man in full opera dress, sprawls out, snoring in the back.

  In the silence that follows I walk on, my footsteps muffled by the snow, but I’ve gone less than a dozen paces when someone calls out.

  I stop and turn, then wait as the man comes out from beneath the gate tower. He’s a soldier of some kind, a guard maybe, or a policeman, his gun slung over his shoulder, and he’s clearly not happy to see me there, making him stir from his warm guard box.

  This is an age of anarchists and revolutions, and anyone out this late is suspect, especially someone dressed as oddly as I, in the clothes of a different century.

  He barks something at me in Czech and I answer back politely in German, giving it a faint Austrian accent.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m a stranger here.’

  Thinking that I’m a countryman, he softens his manner, speaking now in German.

  ‘Hold there, friend. What business have you out at this hour?’

  ‘My coach lost a wheel,’ I say, ‘coming in on the Pizen road. I had to walk. My friend Karl, he lives in Rasnovka. I’m going there now.’

  ‘Rasnovka?’ he says, frowning and coming closer, so that I can make out his pale blue eyes, his balding pate and snow-streaked beard. ‘But that’s in the Josefstadt. He lives there?’

  ‘Karl’s a poor man,’ I say. ‘He can afford no better. But I’ve come to change his luck.’

  And, knowing the ways of officials of this age, I slip the man a ten krona note, and he beams and touches his cap and bids me a very good morning.

  232

  Rasnovka is a long, broad street, forming a dog-leg from south to east, just one block from the river. The fourteenth-century Church of St Castullus stands at its southern end, candles burning in its vaulted entrance, and in the snowbound dark it seems the warmest spot in that bleak, forbidding place. This is the very edge of the Josefstadt, the Jewish Quarter, and is some way from the seven ancient synagogues that serve this town within a town.

  I look about me, taking in the fact that there are no phone lines strung across the street, no aerials or dishes, reminding myself that this is just before the Modern Age begins, before radio and television and mass communications. They have trams and trains, but that’s about all. This world is still, in essence, medieval, and maybe that’s why Schikaneder has camped out here, on the edge between the old world and the new.

  At least, that’s my guess.

  Number eleven is a tall, grey house of five storeys, its façade stern, almost anonymous in its regularity, heavy shutters pulled across the windows. There’s not a glimmer of light from within and I’m beginning to think I might have to find lodgings for the night – in Wenceslas Square, most likely – when I note that there’s a side gate and what’s clearly an alleyway running between the houses.

  I push at the gate, which is taller than me and in need of a fresh coat of paint, and find myself in a dark and narrow space. In the moonlight I can see trees at the back of the house – a garden, possibly – and make my way through. It’s as I emerge, out into the open space at the back of the house, that I hear someone opening the shutters to one of the windows, high up, at the very top of the house. A pale light spills down.

  I step back, looking up, careful not to trip over anything in the half dark, and find someone staring down at me, as if I’m expected. And maybe I am. Maybe old Schnorr has b
een here before me, seeking Schikaneder’s permission. Yet why at this ungodly hour?

  ‘I’ll come down,’ he says, quietly but clearly, then vanishes back inside. I wait, and in less than a minute, he appears at the back door, a heavy black cloak draped about his shoulders, a candle held out before him in an elaborate silver holder. He’s a tall, dark-complexioned man, with a full dark beard and long hair falling in ringlets in the Jewish manner. But what I’m most aware of is his smile, which is guarded, sardonic.

  ‘Come, Otto,’ he says. ‘Come in out of the cold.’

  233

  I study the back of him as we climb the narrow stairs, surprised to find so young and vigorous a man. His hands are strong and finely made, his hair a deep and lustrous black.

  But why surprised? Schikaneder is still a youngish man. He’ll not die for another thirty years.

  The stairs seem endless, the candle flickering wildly ahead of us, throwing shadows everywhere. And then, suddenly, we’re at the top, the door to his rooms open before us, a fire burning brightly in the grate that greets us as we step through.

  It’s a warm and welcoming room, lit by three pretty glass-cased gas lamps that hang from the ceiling rose. A huge, pillow-strewn settee fills the right-hand wall and a thick, Turkish-looking rug rests underfoot, covering most of the floor. There’s a silken Chinese screen, and two other chairs – one of them a plush-looking armchair – and, on the mantlepiece, a menorah, a nine-armed Jewish candelabra, made of polished silver.

  Going across, Schikaneder pulls the window down, then folds the shutters across. That done, he turns to face me.

  Jakub Schikaneder is a man of pale and distinguished features. He’s of medium build with a prominent nose and chin, a heavy, almost sensuous mouth, and deep, attentive eyes. Brown eyes. Eyes that seem, at the same time, warm and critical.

  Yet the abiding impression I have of him is that he’s ill. Physically ill, that is. Consumptive, maybe. Or is it only the gaslight that makes him seem so; only the stark contrast between his looks and, say, for instance, Seydlitz, or one of the other young Teutonic ‘gods’ we send out among the ages? He seems too refined to be a German, too southern. No wonder he chose to play the Jew back here. He looks the part.