Debt of Ages

by Steve White

  “My background is Western,” Sarnac said defensively,

  “and I’m not intolerant of anybody’s religion, or lack of it.”

  “Of course not. You’re a modern, secularized Westerner, a product of the scientific and industrial revolutions and their resultant social disintegration, otherwise known as ‘freedom.’ We’re going to make that possible here. But it will take more preliminary work than I may have indicated. And now—” he indicated Sol, grown to the proportions of a sun “—we have much to do and little time, so you must forego further explanations until after we land.”

  Sarnac had approached the night side of fifth-century Earth once before, and no longer felt a bottom-dropping-out-of-the-stomach sensation at the nighttime blackness of an Earth innocent of electric lighting.

  The ship dropped down and settled like a feather. It was stealthed against all sensors, including the Mark One Eyeball and Mark One Eardrum that were the only sensors currently available to humans. But Tylar made sure there was no one present to see the hatchway open before he let them step through and emerge into the moonlit spring night beside the old Roman road.

  As soon as the hatchway closed behind them, Tylar took out a small device and regarded it silently for a moment. Then they felt a breeze of displaced air as the invisible ship soared silently upward into the low orbit where it would patiently await recall. Then they looked around at each other.

  They were all in the same kind of nondescript contemporary clothing, including Tiraena. Tylar had decided that for the moment it would be simplest for her to masquerade as a young man—a simple matter for her in this ill-nourished milieu. She was of average height for a twenty-third-century Raehaniv woman, which made her tall on the standards of her Terran female contemporaries and taller than the average man of the fifth century. She had acquiesced with no good grace. Sarnac, for his part, was looking forward to the newly remembered sensation of being a big guy—it was restful, somehow.

  He activated his light-gathering contact lenses, and the moonlit scene became as clear as though seen by daylight. The road ran northeast toward Constantinople, their destination. Off to one side was what had been a roadside shrine to Hermes, long since desecrated by the Christians and its idol removed. The moonlight had invested the crumbling little structure with a flesh-prickling aura of romantic, mysterious antiquity. In the pitiless clarity of the optics, it was merely dilapidated. To the other side, a low cliff overlooked the Sea of Marmara.

  The device in Tylar’s hands shape-shifted, stretching out to form a staff such as a middle-aged man might use when journeying on foot. A quick calculation told Sarnac that its total volume had increased significantly; it was probably less dense than the wood it now appeared to be.

  “Where are we?” Tiraena wanted to know. “I thought we were going to Constantinople.”

  “As I intimated, we’ve been researching this era—the temportal we used has been in place for over a year. This is as close to Constantinople as I thought it prudent to land, so I had the portal device left here. We’ve also infiltrated an agent into the city, with whom I’ve already been in contact.” He didn’t say how.

  “An agent?” Andreas looked puzzled. “I thought we were going to be on our own.”

  “In operational terms, we are. Quite simply, I can’t risk involving any of my own people except Artorius, whose background is unique. I’m not at all certain of their ability to function effectively in a mission which flies in the face of all their training and conditioning. Imagine a dedicated veteran museum custodian who was suddenly ordered to start smashing the exhibits! But for reasons which will become apparent, we need a contact. So I’m using one of my best men in a supporting capacity. We’re to meet him this morning. We’ll have a bit of a walk, but we should reach the city just after dawn.”

  Tiraena ran a hand through her hair, cut even shorter than its norm. “Tylar, should we be traveling in the dark like this? Aren’t you worried about, uh, highwaymen, or dacoits, or whatever they’re called in this part of Earth?”

  “No, I expect no such trouble this close to the capital of an empire as vigorous and effective as this one has become. And if we do encounter any unpleasantness, our ability to see in the dark plus these—” he took from the pouch at his side a slim metallic tube such as they all carried “—should give us whatever advantage we need.” He set out along the road, and the other four followed, moving slowly along the coastline of what would one day be called Turkish Thrace in their reality. What it would be called in this reality—and, indeed, everything else about the future of this reality—was about to become unpredictable.

  They first glimpsed Constantinople silhouetted against the dawn. By the time they reached the Golden Gate, the city had awoken to roaring life.

  They passed through a polyglot throng as they crossed over the sixty-foot-wide moat—dry now, as was normal— and through the outermost of the three-mile-long triple walls Theodosius II had built early in this century to protect a city that had long since outgrown Constantines original wall. They continued on up a ramp through the twenty-seven-foot second wall, and before them stood the real wall of Constantinople, with its massive seventy-foot towers, thick and solid enough to withstand the discharge of the torsion-powered missile-throwers atop them.

  Sarnacs experience of the fifth century was limited to the provinces of western Europe, whose rusticity was seldom varied by even so much as a town. Perhaps that was why he—child of a civilization which tamed the energies that powered the suns and the gravity that shaped space—found himself impressed by these walls, remains of which could still be seen in his timeline. In that history, nothing had overcome them for a thousand years… and even then it had taken the gunpowder artillery of which Theodosius II had never dreamed. He tried to imagine what the construction of these walls had meant to a society on this technological level, but soon gave up.

  “Artorius,” he asked the former High King, who was wearing a hood lest anyone should notice that his profile was the one on all the coins, “how did your counterpart ever take this place?”

  “He didn’t. He defeated Zeno in the field. Afterwards, Zeno died during the retreat, and the Sacred Consistory— that’s sort of the Emperor’s cabinet—unanimously concluded that the Augustus of the West was his late enemy’s undoubted heir apparent The Senate ratified the decision, which is its only remaining function, and the Restorer made a triumphal entry through this very gate.”

  Sarnac shook his head. “So it was as though the civil war had never happened. This must be a pettifogging lawyers paradise—as bad as twentieth-century North America!”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I’d go that far. But it’s true that the Roman Empire, from its inception, had no clear-cut law of succession. The Tetrarchy’ scheme that Diocletian set up in the third century only muddied the waters. So it’s always been necessary to come up with rationalizations for the current power grab—especially since the Empire became Christian. Its believed that the emperor holds office by virtue of God’s will… and who’s to say how He’ll express His will? Nowhere is it written that He has to act through heredity! So whoever currently occupies the throne, however he got there, is by definition the rightful emperor.” He paused. “The Restorer is trying to solve this problem by returning to the system of adoptive heirs that worked for a little while in Rome’s great days. In Andreas’ history, he succeeds.”

  They continued on, wending their way through obviously new construction to the Old Golden Gate in what was left of the Wall of Constantine, largely cannibalized for its stones. Then they proceeded along Middle Street, the greatest of the thoroughfares that crisscrossed the dense mass of narrow, crooked streets— urban footpaths, really—that made up most of Constantinople. The teeming warrens were visible beyond the porticoes that lined Middle Street. Sarnac’s implanted knowledge included a map showing only the main routes; he wondered if one even existed which showed every detail of what might jokingly be called a street plan—it would hav
e looked like a plate of spaghetti.

  The deeper they penetrated into the city the harder they had to push through a colorfully dressed crowd which was as diverse socially as racially. Glancing to left and right, Sarnac saw that the dwellings of rich and poor interpenetrated as thoroughly as did their occupants. That was something else he “remembered”: Constantinople, unique among big cities (including those of his own twenty-third century) had no fashionable residential districts. Of course, the rich didn’t have to huddle together to find privacy from the rabble—the architecture of their homes, organized around a central court and presenting a blank stone face to the tenements around them, saw to that. But Sarnac wondered if there might be something more to it, in this empire which recognized only the god-emperor and his subjects, of whom the richest was as much a slave as the poorest.

  As they walked on through the urban throng, the only certain indication that they were getting anywhere was the series of squares onto which Middle Street unexpectedly opened—the Forum of Arcadius, the Forum Bovi, the Amastrianum, the Forum of Theodosius, and finally the oval Forum of Constantine, with its red porphyry column topped by a colossal statue of the city’s founder.

  “Constantine was in pretty good shape,” Tiraena observed, eyeing the statue’s classically perfect body.

  “Actually,” Artorius explained, “It’s a statue of the god Apollo, with the head knocked off and replaced by Constantine’s—badly, as you can see. He was vain as the devil. I imagine nobody ever dared to tell him that the locals call the statue ‘old dirty neck.’”

  Tiraena sputtered with laughter, which Sarnac was glad to see. It was the first sign that she was thawing where Artorius was concerned. She’d never been precisely hostile toward the former High King since regaining her memories… just cool and distant. Artorius might not even have noticed—he’d certainly given no indication of noticing—but Sarnac knew how utterly unlike her it was. He wondered what her problem was, but there had never been just the right opportunity to ask her—and there still wasn’t. Instead, he addressed Artorius.

  “What did the Christians have to say about this statue? I mean, isn’t it sort of, uh, blasphemous?”

  “Where their imperial patron was concerned,” Artorius deadpanned, “the Christians were prone to uncharacteristic tolerance.”

  Then they were out of the forum, and soon the massive bulk of the Hippodrome loomed up ahead and to their right Beyond it, Sarnac knew, the Sacred Palace sprawled in all its labyrinthine profusion of buildings, courtyards and gardens down to the Sea of Marmara. A little further and they emerged into the Augustaeum, the colonnaded public square bounded on the southwest by the main entrance to the Sacred Palace, over which floated the sleeve-like blood-red dragon standard that Artorius the Restorer had brought from Britain. At right angles to the palace, and appropriately dwarfed by it, was the Senate house. To the northeast was the church of Saint Sophia—impressive enough, but nothing like the transcendent edifice Justinian would raise in its place in the other reality.

  Already, under the porticoes and around the central statue of Constantines mother Helena, the Augustaeum was filling with lawyers, officials, and everyone who wanted to meet someone. A figure detached itself from the crowd and started toward them.

  “Koreel!” Tiraena exclaimed, at the sight of the familiar face.

  “Ventidius,” Tylar corrected. “Remember, cover names! He’s still using the same one he did when he was your fiance. It’s safe enough, as he’s quite a distance from Britain and unlikely to meet anyone who’ll want an explanation of the alternate Ventidius’ abrupt disappearance twenty-two years ago.”

  “You haven’t changed,” Sarnac told Koreel after the greetings were completed “Of course, I only met you once.”

  “Yes, I remember the night Tiraena and I departed for Britain.” He had arranged for her a position in the household of Artorius’ consort, where he himself was established as a merchant and distant cousin of Tylar/Tertullian. “But now,” he said to Tylar, “we’d better get to my house. You’ll want to eat and rest, and later we can discuss plans for getting you into the Sacred Palace.”

  They left the Augustaeum and moved northward through a maze of narrow streets toward the Phosphorion Harbor on the Golden Horn. Sarnac quickened his pace and got alongside Tylar. “Get us into the palace?” he queried. “What are you and Koreel up to, Tylar? Is this the ‘groundwork’ you’ve been so mysterious about?”

  “Precisely! We’re going to meet none other than the Restorer himself. You see, we need to secure his cooperation.”

  “You’re going to ask for his cooperation in undoing his own life’s work? That ought to go over like a turd in a punchbowl, Tylar.”

  “Granted, I wouldn’t expect him to listen to me. But we have one with us who may very well be able to persuade him.”

  Sarnac -stole a backward glance. Within his hood, Artorius’ face was unreadable.

  Chapter Six

  The house of Koreel/Ventidius was typical of the dwellings of the moderately well-off: a wooden two-storied structure with balconies like the one Sarnac now stood on in the late afternoon. The house blocked his view of the sunset, but he could see to the east, where the hill that had been the acropolis of the old Greek city-state of Byzantion rose above the maze of roofs. By leaning over the railing, he could glimpse the hills beyond Pera to the north, on the other side of the Golden Horn. Directly below him was one of the narrow alleys that he couldn’t bring himself to call streets, thronged with people as usual.

  Sarnac had confidently expected some vague similarities of overall outline to his worlds Istanbul that would confer a comforting familiarity on this city. His expectations had been dashed—if anything, his disorientation was worse than it would have been if he had never had them. He should have approached fifth-century Constantinople as he would have approached contemporary Ctesiphon or Ch’ang-an, which it might as well have been for all he recognized of it.

  He heard a rustle behind him. “Hi, Philogius,” he greeted with a smile. Tiraena snorted at the name Tylar had decreed for the tall teenaged boy that was her current cover identity—a nephew of “Ventidius” and distant cousin of “Tertullian.” All were members of the rather mysterious merchant family of remote Indian origin that was the time travelers’ device for explaining their ethnically unidentifiable looks. It was more than sufficient in the hayseed West, and should work even in this cosmopolitan city. Artorius was a business associate from Gaul, and Sarnac and Andreas were bodyguards.

  “At least I’m not semibarbarian hired muscle, Bedwyr,” she gibed as she settled in beside him on the balcony and looked around. ‘Taking in the view?”

  “Yeah. I was just thinking how little good my knowledge of this city in our time is doing me. You’ve never been here, of course. I was, in the dim mists of my youth.” (Another more-or-less ladylike snort.) “It’ll be called Istanbul then.”

  “Somebody conquers it?”

  “Yes—in our reality. But there’s a lot of diverging history between that city and this one. I’ve got a list of questions I want to ask Artorius. You know, if he lived in our time and didn’t go into politics or the Fleet, he’d be a natural as a tour guide!”

  Her face instantly lost some of its mobility. “Yes. Artorius.” There was a couple of heartbeats’ worth of silence. Then she turned. “The sun’s setting. We’d better get inside.”

  “Hold on a minute. We need to talk about this. You never knew Artorius before—never even met him, just saw him once. And he couldn’t have done anything to piss you off then, he was too busy dying. But it’s pretty obvious you’ve got a problem where he’s concerned.”

  “I’ve never…” She stopped abruptly and her mouth snapped shut, cutting off any pointless denials. After a moment’s stiffness in which she seemed to collect her thoughts, she relaxed and even gave a crooked smile. ‘The truth is, I find myself liking him more than I expected to.”

  “Huh?” Sarnac shook his head. “How co
uld anybody not like him?”

  “You’ve got a different perspective. You and he were comrades-in-arms of a sort. And I don’t think you can separate him in your mind from the legendary figure he became in our timeline. The culture you grew up in made that figure its personification of nobility and greatness and human aspiration. To meet the living original of that figure and find he’s as affable as this character… Well, I can see how it must be an irresistible combination.”

  “It’s not just that,” Sarnac insisted. “Even in his own time, when he was just another warlord and didn’t carry any mythic clout, people could feel his personal magnetism. It was so strong that it left a permanent imprint on legend.”

  “Yes… with a little unwitting help from you and a lot of very witting help from Tylar. But, yes, I know what you mean. And what he—in his alternate version—has done in this timeline speaks for itself about his abilities.”

  “So,” Sarnac asked, perplexed to the point of exasperation, “what’s the problem?”

  “You were never in Britain,” she answered obliquely. “You never met Gwenhwyvaer.”

  “Uh,” he began cautiously, “whatever you may have heard from her, you’ve got to discount it for bitterness.”

  “Oh, no! She wasn’t bitter about him. In fact, she was still very much in love with him. Yes, she had other men, in the lonely years after he drifted away from her. And that fixed her role in legend, with the help of Ambrosius Aurelianus, who was a prick on wheels.” Her years on Earth had done wonders for her vocabulary, Sarnac thought, not for the first time.

  “No,” she continued, “the problem wasn’t hers. It was mine.” She gazed moodily out over the darkening city, and Sarnac didn’t interrupt her thoughts. “Sexual equality has been taken for granted on Raehan for a lot longer than it has on Earth. Or it will! Or… something.” Her smile was like the sun through a rift in clouds. “Give me a good, swift kick the first time you hear Tylar-like noises about tenses! But you know what I mean. And…”