Debt of Ages

by Steve White

  Sarnac and Andreas fumbled for their stunners, but the attackers swamped them. Andreas was clouted on the head and fell to his hands and knees. Sarnac managed to get the harmless-looking little rod out, only to have it knocked from his hand and sent spinning across the floor by a bravo who shoved him against a wall and leveled a short sword at his midriff. He forced calmness on himself and looked around the entrance hall, crowded with intruders. One stood over the slowly recovering Andreas, idly swinging a cudgel. Three others had Faustina and her children backed into a corner. One of this group seemed to be the leader.

  “What do we do with these two?” the man pointing the sword at Sarnac asked. The common Greek was one of the languages “Bedwyr” had picked up a smattering of in his mercenary days in the East.

  “They may be wanted for questioning or something,” the leader replied. “We’d better take them along with these.” He indicated the three children and the woman trying to shield them.

  “Nobody said anything about any big hurry to bring them back, did they?” another bravo asked with a leer in the direction of Helena. The child stood sucking her ringers in numb shock, as unable as her mother and siblings to understand a word of the gutter argot.

  “Ah, you rotten bastard,” the leader joshed indulgently. Tour crazy yen for young stuff has always gotten you in trouble! Now there’s what a real man wants!” He swept the shrieking Faustina aside with one arm and lunged at Julia. “Come here, bitch!”

  Julia screamed and twisted away from the groping hand. Avitus flung himself at the bravo, who smashed him aside with a backhand slap to the laughs and cheers of his comrades. Then he advanced, grinning, toward Julia, whose back was to a wall. Suddenly the girl’s groping hand closed over a vase on a side-table. With a convulsive motion, she flung it at her tormentors head. It missed him, but hit the man guarding Sarnac.

  As the momentarily stunned bravo staggered, Sarnac kicked out at the short sword, sending it frying. Then he flung himself sideways and rolled along the floor toward his stun rod. He had just enough time after grabbing it to thrust it practically into the face of his nearest pursuer. Then he swept its beam across two others. As they collapsed in a heap, he had a split second to see that Andreas had revived and was grappling with the cudgel-wielding bravo, before the one remaining opponent got in under his stunner.

  Sarnac let trained reflexes think for him. He dropped the useless stunner, blocked a blow with his left forearm and formed his right hand into a blade which he thrust into the man’s solar plexus. As the bravo collapsed with a thin, whistling shriek, Sarnac clasped his hands behind his head and forced it down while bringing a knee up, hard. It was the man who’d indicated an interest in Helena. Sarnac brought his knee up twice more for good measure, feeling facial bones splinter. As he let the body fall to the floor, he saw Andreas release his grip from his motionless opponents throat and stand up.

  Helena’s eyes were marbled with shock—hysteria might come later, but Sarnac was quite prepared to use the stunner. Julia stood against the wall, heaving as she sought to bring her breathing under control. Andreas ran to her, and in his arms she gave way to gasping sobs. Faustina looked up from Avitus, who was regaining consciousness, and gave Sarnac a calmer look than he would have believed possible.

  “What is that?” she asked steadily, pointing at the stun rod.

  “That’s unimportant, Lady. At least, you don’t need to know it just now. What you do need to do at once is get yourself and your children to our ship. Surely you can see now that there’s no time to waste.”

  “Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Come, children.” She gathered them up and herded them out the door, shushing complaints of favorite toys left behind. Before the two of them left, Sarnac noted that Andreas gave each merely unconscious bravo a hard kick to the temple. He felt not even an abstract objection, though he would have rather left them to face their employers’ displeasure at their failure. Don’t tell Andreas he’s done them a favor, he cautioned himself. Why ruin his day?

  As they proceeded through the darkling palace grounds,

  Sarnac reported to Tylar via implant communicator. “Oh, dear!” the time traveler exclaimed. “Was it really necessary to use the stunners? I fear that will take some explaining!”

  “Tylar!” Sarnac saw Faustinas quizzical look and realized he’d spoken aloud. “We weren’t exactly in a position to worry about ‘intellectual contamination,’ you know,” he subvocalized. “It might have helped if you’d monitored us with your life-form sensor and let us know that those thugs were approaching!”

  “Quite right, my dear fellow. I am in the process of remedying that omission even now.” Sarnac could visualize the process, although he didn’t pretend to understand it. The device Tylar was readying displayed on a small screen the returns generated as a byproduct by neural activity above a certain level. And it could tag the returns of individuals for whom it had a genetic scan—a simple, non-invasive matter for the time travelers technology.

  “Ah,” came Tylar’s voice after a moment. “Yes, I can identify you and Andreas, and the four with you. And… wait a moment.” There was silence inside Sarnac’s skull, then the voice resumed, this time in tones of repressed alarm. “I’ve also picked up the returns of Ecdicius and Sidonius, walking toward the Daphne Palace—they must have set out practically the instant Ecdicius arrived.” Sarnac wondered how Tylar had obtained the genetic readings of heir and Pope, but he knew he’d get only evasion if he asked. “And seven unidentified individuals taking up positions alongside the pathway they’re using! Robert, this is terrible—we weren’t expecting matters to reach a crisis so quickly!”

  Jesus Christ, what else can go wrong? Sarnac chopped the thought off and subvocalized hurriedly. “Tylar, get a grip on yourself! Are we in a position to get to them before they reach the assassins, from where we are now?”

  “No,” Tylar replied. “But if you hurry you should be able to reach the location of the ambush shortly after they do.”

  “Give me the bearing.”

  “I’ll do better. Turn about seventy degrees south of your present route.” Sarnac stopped and did so, ignoring his companions’ stares. A red dot seemed to appear in mid-air in front of his eyes. “I’m downloading data to your contact-lens display,” Tylar explained. “As long as you’re proceeding in the right direction, you’ll see the dot. Send Ecdicius’ family on ahead. I’ll come as quickly as possible—I may be able to persuade Sidonius of the need for immediate flight.”

  “Faustina,” Sarnac said aloud, “can you make it the rest of the way to the harbor?” He pointed ahead. The woman lacked his light-gathering contact lenses, but she could see the harbor lights through the trees. She nodded. “Good. Get the children down there—someone will meet you on the dock.” He hoped they’d be too disoriented to recognize Artorius—this was not the time for lengthy explanations! “Andronicus and I have business, but we’ll be along soon.”

  Faustina nodded again and shepherded the children along after a last eye-contact between Julia and Andreas. Sarnac slapped the latter on the shoulder, none too gently. “Come on! I’ll explain as we go.”

  They ran through the gloom of the gardens, well-illuminated for them, and the ghostly dot seemed to constantly recede before Sarnac’s eyes. Presently they heard shouts and clashing steel, and soon they saw Ecdicius hauling Sidonius away from the bravo he’d sapped with a rock and backing the two of them up against a tall thick hedge. Three bravos were on the ground, but four others closed in on the pair, clearly unconcerned by Sidonius’ call for help.

  Sarnac pulled out his stun rod “Well, shall we?” Andreas nodded and they stepped forward.

  Chapter Ten

  Homer had sung of the “wine-dark sea,” and Sarnac could see exactly what he’d meant as he looked into the swirling, foaming Aegean depths far below.

  He stood on the footropes that the ever-practical Romans had first strung behind yards, and wrapped one arm around the swaying mast. The m
ainsail was taken up as per Corineus’ orders and he could take a moment to gaze around from his high vantage, shielding his eyes from the Mediterranean sun with his free hand and letting the warm wind blow through his hair. The brilliance and clarity of the day, and the blueness of the sky, were just short of hurtful. Off the starboard bow he could glimpse Cape Sounion, its cliff topped by the white temple that was now in the first stages of the decay that would eventually leave only a few stark columns, lovingly preserved in his day because the worship of beauty had outlived that of Poseidon.

  “Can we get down now?” Andreas pleaded. He stood on the other side of the mast, grasping the yard for dear life and resolutely not looking down at the ship—and the world—that seemed to swing back and forth like a pendulum. They had departed Constantinople in haste minus a couple of crew members; and when Sarnac had volunteered to help take up the slack the younger man had swallowed hard and stepped forward beside him. By now he’d learned enough to be useful, and his experience with other forms of motion sickness had helped ease him past his initial mal de mer. But he’d never like it.

  “Sure,” Sarnac said reluctantly, grasping a shroud and sliding down to the deck. Andreas followed more slowly, just as a wave buffeted the ship. He succeeded in hanging on; the fact that Julia was watching from below might have had something to do with it.

  Sarnac surveyed the deck, looking aft where the steersmen stood in the projections at the quarters. They had already made the course change needed to round Cape Sounion in response to Corineus’ commands; now they kept the handles of their rudders steady (not even the Chinese had the sternpost rudder yet) while the skipper held Avitus and Helena spellbound with imaginative lies about his youthful sea-fights with Saxons, Frisians and the occasional monster. Yup, Sarnac thought, all he needs is a parrot and a wooden leg. Between the steering stations was the long deckhouse that held most of the living quarters. Sarnac entered it and descended the ladder to the sanctum.

  Tylar, Artorius, Ecdicius and Sidonius sat around the little table in the lamplight. Ecdicius fidgeted in the cramped space. On learning of the attack on his family he’d been all for going back ashore and spilling blood in large quantities, even before his own wound was tended to. But Faustina had been able to calm him down, and their departure hadn’t been too delayed. Afterwards, when Artorius had given him and Sidonius the same story they’d used on the Restorer, he had accepted it more readily than Sarnac had dared hope. Clearly, Ecdicius was one of those fortunate souls with the ability to file apparent miracles away under the heading “Inexplicable—not to be worried about” and get on with practicalities.

  Sidonius, though, was still deeply troubled.

  “But is it not heresy?” he was asking as Sarnac entered and closed the hatch. “Surely there can be no warrant in the scriptures for supposing two Saviors! So is one of these worlds of which you speak not irrevocably damned?”

  “No, Sidonius,” Artorius spoke patiently. He’d grown up in this century, and knew the depths of what Sidonius was undergoing while Sarnac could only glimpse the surface. “Remember, the forking of the roads I’ve spoken of happened twenty-one years ago—four hundred and seventy years after the birth of our Savior, and almost four hundred and forty after His resurrection. So all men, whichever history they are playing out, are redeemed.”

  Sidonius wrung his hands in anguish. “But now, after these ‘roads’ of which you speak have indeed parted, are there two trinities? How could the divine essence be so subdivided?” Sarnac tried to imagine what a nightmare this must be for Sidonius, in an age when so much ink and blood had been spilled over the precise nature of one trinity. He himself couldn’t feel these concerns, but he knew distress of soul when he saw it.

  “Not at all, Sidonius,” Artorius assured him. ‘The Father, being infinite, is well able to comprehend two—or, for that matter, infinitely numerous—realities.” The former High King had had to become something of an amateur theologian to deal with this problem, which they’d known was coming. Luckily, doctrine had never been Sidonius’ strong point. He’d started his ecclesiastical career at age thirty-eight as a political bishop. A trained theologian would have been a lot harder to deal with.

  Ecdicius squirmed. ‘This is all very well, but the question now is what we are to do! You say these damned conspirators were part of a Monophysite plot?”

  “Well, Noblissimus,” said Tylar, “it stands to reason, doesn’t it? In view of your well-known fidelity to the true Catholic faith, the Monophysites could hardly have welcomed the prospect of your accession, could they?” Sarnac shot the time traveler a sharp glance, but Tylar continued without a break. “Their obvious objective would be to bestow the purple on an openly Monophysite emperor, one who would call a new Council which would undo Chalcedon and make the Monophysite position canonical, anathematizing all others. One might also suppose that they would wish to elevate the Patriarchy of Constantinople to supreme primacy, reducing Rome to the kind of subordinate position now occupied by Antioch and Alexandria.”

  Ecdicius and Sidonius had been showing signs of gradually rising blood pressure throughout, but the last sentence brought the latter surging to his feet, doctrinal concerns forgotten. “What! But everyone knows that our Lord explicitly gave into the hands of Saint Peter…”

  Ecdicius wasn’t far behind him. He stood up with a roar, trying to draw his spatha and banging his funny bone against a bulkhead of the little cabin, which did his mood no good at all. “By the mercy of Christ, when I return to Constantinople to claim my inheritance my horse will walk fetlock-deep in the blood of these damned traitors and heretics!”

  “Noblissimus,” Tylar smiled, “are you absolutely certain you want to return to Constantinople?”

  “What are you saying, Tertullian? I’m the rightful heir to Artorius the Restorer!”

  “And,” Sidonius added, “he is our only hope for crushing this foul conspiracy and the Monophysites behind it! Otherwise, the usurpers will impose their devil-begotten heresy on the West, and we will all face damnation.”

  “Yes! When I’m back in Constantinople with the support of the West, like…”

  “Like the Restorer was.” Tylar’s quiet interjection stopped Ecdicius short, and he and Sidonius were suddenly quiet. Tylar smiled. “Noblissimus, I don’t question the legal rightfulness of your claim to the purple. But we must consider reality. And reality is that the East, with its multitudes and its wealth, will always dominate a unified empire. This is so even if the Augustus comes from the West and bases his power on Western arms.”

  “My people,” Sarnac put in, “have a saying about the tail wagging the dog.”

  ” The tail wagging the…’ Ha! Good one, Bedwyr! I’ll have to remember that!” Ecdicius’ mercurial mood-changes no longer caught Sarnac flat-footed. “All right, Tertullian, what are you advising me to do?”

  “If the West is to stand as the stronghold of the true faith, Noblissimus, it must stand alone. Once in Italy, declare the resumption of Constantine’s division of the empire. Your troops will eagerly proclaim you Augustus of the West, for yourself as well as for the love they bear the Restorer, whose choice of a successor is well known to them. And you, Your Holiness, can lend your support by anathematizing the Eastern Church and excommunicating anyone who adheres to the Henotikon.”

  “Yes,” Sidonious nodded. “And specifically excommunicating the Patriarch Acacius and whoever the conspirators set up as Augustus.” He turned to his brother-in-law. “Ecdicius, I believe Tertullian is right. We can’t save the East from error, but we can…” He sought for a word, but of course his world held no such concept as quarantine. “I’ve watched what the East has done to my old friend. The reunified empire of which he—all of us— dreamed can never be anything more than a Greater Eastern Empire, with the West as a set of provinces. I see that clearly now. I think I’ve seen it for years. But no old fool ever wants to admit that his youthful ideals have been discredited, or were mistaken in the first place, for tha
t admission is the final relinquishment of youth.” He sighed deeply, in a silence which no one cared to break, then gathered himself and actually smiled. “Ecdicius, I’m still enough of an old fool to believe that we can preserve what is of value in Rome’s heritage. But we can only do it in a separate Western Empire.” He smiled again, with infinite sadness. “I hope Virgil will understand,” he whispered.

  After a space, Ecdicius cleared his throat. “All well and good, but there’s one practical point we have to dispose of first.” He looked Artorius unflinchingly in the eye. ‘The Restorer adopted me as his heir in the belief that he had no heir of his body, indeed no close blood-relatives who might be able to set up rival claims. Now, as I understand it, you and he are closer in blood relation than any men have ever dreamed of being.” Sarnac thought he could see a sheen of sweat in the lamplight, of a kind that had nothing to do with the cabin’s stuffiness. But Ecdicius pressed on, as fearless in the face of the unknowable as he had ever been in battle. “Indeed, unless I misunderstand; you are…”

  Artorius raised his hand. “Set your mind at rest, Ecdicius. It’s true that for my first forty-two years I was one and the same as he who adopted you as his heir. But now I belong to another world—or, perhaps, another story of the same world—and as soon as may be I mean to return to it. I have no intention of seeking to rule this one. I could give you a written statement of support for your claim to the Principate of the West if you like, but it would be a meaningless formality. Let me instead tell you this: I know of what you’ve done, and what he who you became in my world has done in that world.” Ecdicius crossed himself, in a way that Sarnac recognized as something more than mere conventional piety, for which Ecdicius had never been particularly noted anyway. “And I tell you now that had my life followed the same course as that of the Artorius you know, I’d have chosen the same heir he did.”