Asimov's Future History Volume 3

by Isaac Asimov

  After a few minutes Ygerna came back inside, carrying a large cut of mutton. She knelt again at the hearth and began cutting it into smaller pieces with a large knife. Outside the hut again, she filled a large cookpot with water from a cistern and carried it back to the fire. She hung the pot over the fire and dropped the chunks of mutton into the water. In a few minutes, the water began to boil.

  “Smells horrible,” Wayne whispered.

  “The meat can’t be bad,” said Jane quietly. “It’s really fresh. Maybe mutton always smells like that. I’ve never had any.”

  With effort, Emrys carried a large, bulging cloth bag to a tree and threw a rope over a low-hanging branch. From the size of the burden and the blood soaking the bag, Jane saw that it held the sheep carcass. He hoisted the bag into the air, high enough to keep the dogs away from it.

  Jane understood that the cool temperature would preserve it for a while. It still looked like too much meat for his family alone to eat before it spoiled. Obviously, he had the same problem every time he slaughtered a sheep, so he would have some normal routine to avoid wasting the meat. She wondered what it would be.

  4

  THE DRIZZLE CONTINUED through the afternoon. As the day cooled, the wind came up and the drizzle turned to rain. Emrys called for his son to bring the flock back to a small pen behind the hut. Then the boy joined the family inside. Ishihara went on chopping wood.

  Emrys started to close the door of the hut against the rain. With a questioning glance at Jane, he paused to point to Ishihara.

  “Ishihara, come in,” Jane said in English. “If you were human, you’d be exhausted by now.”

  “Of course.” Ishihara brought his ax, stopping to wipe the mud from his feet on a patch of grass before he came inside the hut. Then he dried the ax blade on a rag that hung on a hook next to the other ax.

  Just as Emrys closed the door, Jane saw that Ishihara had stacked more new firewood than Emrys had cut and split before they arrived.

  Once Emrys had closed the door, the fire warmed the hut quickly. Ygerna ladled chunks of boiled mutton onto wooden plates that already held pieces of bread. She took one first to Jane, then served her supposed servants. Emrys received his dinner next, followed by Ygerna and the children.

  By now Jane was very hungry. She did not really like the mutton, but she knew that Emrys and Ygerna had sacrificed a sheep for their benefit, so she ate it all. The bread, chewy and dense, tasted better than it looked. After everyone had eaten, Ygerna served some sort of herbal tea in wooden cups.

  Jane and Wayne did not speak. However, Ishihara pointed to objects around the hut and asked the children to tell him what they were called. Sometimes Emrys and Ygerna, laughing, helped them.

  “Ishihara seems to be learning to speak with them quickly,” said Jane. “I guess his knowledge of Latin helps, but I wonder how thoroughly he can pick up their native language.”

  “He does very well,” said Wayne. “He learned rudimentary Chinese quickly because he can apply linguistic principles from the languages he knows to a new language.”

  “I see.” Jane nodded. Since Ishihara had no memory lapses of the kind humans routinely had in the learning process, once he learned patterns and vocabulary, he immediately possessed full use of them.

  Ishihara turned to Wayne. “They want to know where we came from. What shall I say?”

  “We have to justify our Chinese clothing,” said Jane. “That is, we have to explain why it’s different. I doubt they ever heard of China.”

  “Maybe you can just tell them we came by ship across the Channel,” said Wayne.

  “That’s it,” said Jane. “Tell them we were shipwrecked by a storm.”

  “I understand,” said Ishihara. “This will explain why we have no belongings or money.”

  “Yeah,” said Wayne. “It’s perfect. That’s why a lady with servants could be broke.”

  Ishihara spoke to their hosts, including the children, in short phrases sprinkled with Latin. Ygerna, in particular, asked more questions. Finally she and Emrys both nodded in understanding.

  For the night, Jane was given the children’s sleeping pallets. The children moved behind the curtain with their parents. Emrys gave Wayne and Ishihara clean wool blankets to roll up in on the floor.

  Jane bundled up on the sleeping pallet. The hut remained warm and cozy from the fire. She fell asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

  In the morning, Jane awoke to the sound of the children talking and giggling. Ygerna hustled them outside; when Jane opened her eyes, she saw through the open doorway that the rain had stopped, though gray clouds still covered the sky. Under her blanket, she carefully arranged her robe in its proper position, then got up to find the out house.

  Outside, Wayne was splashing water on his face at the cistern. Ishihara had already begun to chop wood again. The air was cool and brisk.

  When Jane returned to the hut, Ygerna was stirring a pot of hot porridge over the fire. She served wooden bowls of the thick porridge to everyone around the table. Jane called in Ishihara, in order to continue his masquerade as a human.

  “Now what do we do?” Wayne asked quietly in English. “Are we going to have to leave now?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jane. “Maybe we shouldn’t put too much burden on one family.”

  “Should I ask?” Ishihara asked.

  “We should be careful how we phrase the question,” said Jane. “We don’t want to insult them.”

  “They probably assume we want to get on the road to our ultimate destination,” said Wayne. “They heard last night that we were shipwrecked and left with nothing, but we still must have been going somewhere.”

  “Good point,” said Jane. “So where are we going? We’d better have our story straight.”

  Ygema and Emrys listened curiously, watching them as they all ate.

  “I only know the year and our location,” said Wayne. “I have no idea what’s going on in history now.

  Where could we have been going? Maybe London?”

  “I can’t help,” said Jane. “This is why Hunter keeps hiring historians to take with him.”

  “I have some rudimentary history of this time, but no more,” said Ishihara. “The Romans settled London several centuries ago under the name Londinium, but it’s a long way from here. We can’t actually go there if we’re going to find MC 6 in this area.”

  “We better say we were coming to this area all along,” said Jane. “That will explain why we won’t go very far. But we don’t know where we are, do we?”

  “On the modern map, yes,” said Ishihara. “But I know very little about significant locations in this time.”

  “Ask Emrys,” said Jane.

  “What’s that going to accomplish?” Wayne snickered. “He already knows we’re lost.”

  “Exactly. And no matter what he says, we’ll tell him this is our destination.”

  “Of course,” said Ishihara. He turned to Emrys and spoke briefly in a mixture of Latin and British. Then he switched back to English. “The village on top of the highest hill is Cadbury. The hill itself is called Cadbury Tor. This is the home of a man named Artorius Riothamus.”

  “Cadbury what?” Wayne asked.

  “Tor. It means a high hill in the local language.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is MC 6 going to show up there?” Jane asked.

  “I believe so,” said Wayne. “These component robots have been continually drawn to people of power in the hope, I judge, of influencing them to do less harm to the humans within their power.”

  “Then Cadbury Tor really is our destination,” said Wayne. “Tell him that.”

  “And add that we cannot pay for lodging because of the shipwreck,” Jane added.

  Ishihara spoke to Emrys again. The shepherd responded, nodding, and gestured outside. He grinned and gave Ishihara a friendly slap on the shoulder.

  “He has complimented my ability to cut firewood,” said Ishihara.

&nbs
p; Jane smiled, struggling to suppress a laugh.

  “Emrys wants to go to Cadbury today to sell the rest of the sheep carcass and some of the extra firewood I have cut. He says he knows that this ‘humble hut,’ as he calls it, is not good enough for a lady such as Jane, but he has thanked me for the labor I have saved him.”

  “Do you think we could stay here another night, if necessary?” Wayne asked.

  “I think if we expressed interest, and I continue to cut wood for him or find other ways to help him, we would be welcome,” said Ishihara.

  Jane was relieved to hear that, but said nothing.

  “Good,” said Wayne. “Tell him we’ll be happy to go to Cadbury with him. If we can’t find a place to stay there, then we can talk to him about coming back.”

  “Tell Ygerna that my leg is well, and thank her for the mud poultice,” said Jane. “Otherwise, I’ll have to fake a limp all day.”

  Ishihara spoke again to Emrys and Ygerna. After breakfast, Emrys sent his eldest son out again with their dogs to take the flock for the day. Then, at Emrys’s direction, Ishihara helped him load firewood and the bagged sheep carcass into the donkey cart.

  Jane looked around the countryside in the brisk morning air. Shepherds led their flocks out again in the distance. Smoke rose from the other huts. Life here, at least today, appeared calm and stable.

  While Emrys hitched the donkey, Ygerna and the younger children came out to watch with Jane and Wayne. She pointed to the cart and spoke sharply to Emrys.

  He nodded and spoke to Ishihara, who began rearranging the wood in the cart.

  “What’s wrong?” Wayne asked quietly. “What does Ygerna want?”

  “She told Emrys we must see that the lady can ride in the cart,” said Ishihara. “I will form a seat for her with the wood.”

  When the cart was ready, Ishihara lifted Jane into the cart. She found her footing on the uneven firewood and sat down. Once she had settled into the seat he had made, she found that it was actually comfortable.

  The sheep carcass lay in the front, near her feet. She was glad Emrys had put it in the cloth bag. From her high seat on the cart, she looked down at Wayne and Ishihara.

  Ishihara turned to Wayne. “Emrys has room for one more next to him on the driver’s bench. I will walk, of course.”

  Wayne nodded and climbed up next to Emrys.

  As Emrys shook the reins to drive the donkey, Jane looked down at Ygerna and the children. The kids waved shyly. She waved back, smiling.

  The donkey strained under the load but pulled it forward. The cart creaked slowly out to the road.

  Ishihara walked near the rear, next to Jane.

  When they reached the road, Jane saw that it was soft and muddy from yesterday’s drizzle. However, she did not see any tracks in it; the mud had not been stirred up. The donkey’s hooves and the wheels of the cart sank into it somewhat, but did not get stuck.

  Jane enjoyed the slow, quiet ride. Now that her immediate worries about shelter, food, and safety had been satisfied, she relaxed. She could not plan her escape from Wayne and Ishihara in any detail until she knew that Hunter’s team had arrived in this time, and where they were located. For now, she had nothing to do but observe whatever she could for future reference.

  Emrys and Wayne could not make casual conversation, so they did not speak; Jane had no desire to talk to Wayne unless she had to. The cart swayed gently as the donkey plodded slowly along. Jane watched Cadbury village as they drew closer.

  A wall ringed the village on the plateau. The fact that the village was protected this way, and lay on the flat top of a high tor surrounded by earthwork ramparts at the base of the tor, told her that this area was not always as peaceful as it was today. She remembered that MC 6’s specialty in Mojave Center had been social stability, and wondered what had drawn him here.

  The journey to the base of the tor took over an hour. By that time, they had passed a couple of people walking along the road. Other people, some of them driving carts or riding horseback, came and went from the tor. As Jane saw the open gate in the earthworks clearly, she looked first at the donkey, then down at Ishihara.

  “Is this little donkey going to make it home again? He must be worn out.”

  “Emrys expects to sell the wood and the meat. The return load will be much lighter.”

  Sentries at the gate glanced at the cart and waved them through without stopping them, though they stared in wonder at Jane in her Chinese robe. Emrys drove the cart up a steep slope to the top of the tor.

  Jane saw Wayne looking around with interest and did the same.

  The defensive earthworks turned out to be more than a single wall. Four concentric walls ringed the base and the lower portion of the slope. Starting just inside the gate, cobblestones paved the road.

  “It’s bigger than it looked from outside,” said Jane, as the donkey began pulling the cart up the steep angle. “Ishihara, how big is this place?”

  Ishihara scanned the area briefly. “I cannot see the far side of the tor, but if the shape of its base as a whole is roughly a circle, I estimate that outer wall encloses approximately seven hectares.”

  Up ahead, the road led through an open, nearly square gatehouse in the high wall that surrounded the summit and the village within it. Sentries held spears lazily on the top of the wall, talking among themselves. Jane thought the wall had been constructed of wood until the cart passed through it. Then she found that only a breastwork of wood faced the outside; the bulk of the wall was made of unmortared stone.

  Inside the wall, they found themselves in a bustling village. Jane turned and looked up at the inside of the wall. Now she could see that the sentries stood on top of a wooden platform that ringed the top of the stone wall, with the wooden breastwork rising high enough to protect them from attackers who might have crossed the first four earthen ramparts on the lower slope. All around the village, the interior side of the wall was designed the same way.

  “It looked so modest from a distance,” said Jane. “This is pretty impressive.”

  “I estimate the perimeter of this wall to be over three-quarters of a kilometer,” said Ishihara. “Since the wall has neither straight sides nor represents a circle, my approximation is quite rough.”

  On the far side of the main gate, a two-story hall built of timbers rose over the rest of the village. Emrys turned the cart down a narrow side street, but Jane continued to look at the hall. If MC 6, after returning to his full size, was going to seek the seat of power, he would probably find it inside that hall.

  Jane saw that Wayne also had taken a second glance at the hall. He almost certainly had reached the same conclusion, but she said nothing. Maybe something else was on his mind. In any case, MC 6 was still microscopic, possibly somewhere on the ground at their feet this very moment.

  Emrys drew up the cart and greeted a couple of men behind a booth. Chunks of meat layout on a wooden counter, with flies buzzing over them. The men called out heartily and waved for him to step down.

  As he did so, Jane realized that the men at the booth and most of the other villagers nearby were all staring at her. Then she saw that they looked just as curiously at Wayne and Ishihara, in their more modest Chinese peasant clothes. None of the villagers spoke, however.

  5

  JANE WATCHED IN silence as Emrys drew the cloth bag back from the sheep carcass. The other men examined the meat as Emrys talked, and then they unloaded the carcass and carried it to their booth.

  One of them carefully counted a few coins into Emrys’s hand. He slapped the other man on the shoulder with a quick smile and mounted the cart again.

  “It’s interesting to watch,” Jane said to Ishihara. “In all the times and places we’ve visited, dickering over small business transactions seems to be about the same.”

  “Yes,” said Ishihara.

  Emrys shook the reins. This time he drove the donkey around a corner and followed the narrow, crooked streets to the main doors of the large hall. H
e spoke briefly to a sentry, who slipped inside.

  “I wonder who lives here,” Jane said casually to Ishihara. She did not want to express too much interest in the building, for fear of alerting Ishihara and Wayne to her belief that MC 6 would eventually come here. Even if they had reached the same conclusion, she could pretend she had not. “I guess, Emrys knows they burn a lot of wood in a building this size.”

  “I expect so.” Ishihara changed languages and spoke to Emrys, who answered at some length.

  Wayne turned in the seat to look at Ishihara. “What did he say?”

  “Emrys says this is the palace of Artorius Riothamus,” said Ishihara.

  “Artorius is a Latin name,” said Wayne. “Is he a Roman warlord who stayed behind or something?”

  “‘Riothamus’ seems to mean ‘High King,’ “said Ishihara. “He is also called Artorius the ‘Dux Bellorum.’”

  “That’s Latin for ‘War Leader,’ “said Wayne. “But what does it mean as a title?”

  “I presume that not every High King leads his men out to war personally,” said Ishihara. “However, that is merely my own surmise.”

  “We’re roboticists, not historians,” said Jane. “Ishihara, do you have any history at all that pertains to this time and place?”

  “Very little,” said Ishihara. “However, I believe that Artorius the High King may be the man upon whom the legend of King Arthur is based.”

  Wayne scowled. “This place doesn’t look much like the Camelot I learned about as a kid.”

  “The legend was built by storytellers and poets and novelists over many centuries,” said Jane.

  A tall, burly man dressed in a worn leather tunic came outside with the sentry and several other men. The tall man spoke to Emrys briefly, then nodded. The other men started to approach the cart but stopped, looking at Jane.

  “Emrys has sold the entire cartload of wood,” said Ishihara, raising his arms to lift Jane. “I will help you down.”

  Jane stood up and let Ishihara move her to the ground. As the workmen began carrying armloads of wood into the palace, the first man counted out a handful of coins into Emrys’s palm. Emrys opened a leather pouch at his belt and slipped the coins inside.