The Master of Time

by David Wingrove

  I reach out and gently touch her neck. ‘Do you want to …?’

  Katerina smiles. ‘What do you think?’

  I smile, only there’s a chill wind blowing out there and it’s worrying to know just how many timelines there are that I don’t know her in.

  ‘Come here, my love. Come closer …’

  For who knows how long it’ll be until we meet again.

  473

  I find it. Or, rather, I trip over it and find it.

  Why they didn’t choose a better spot, I cannot say; only that it’s hard to predict – from over a thousand years’ distance – just what might grow there in between times. Especially when the timeline is changing so often.

  A tree root, that was what it was attached to! And once I’d found it, my job was nice and straightforward. To watch it as long and as often as I could and see who came through. In both directions.

  A platform. One small, man-sized platform, there at the very centre of Cherdiechnost. Un-noted, undiscovered, until I tripped over it.

  Going where? And for how long?

  Well, let’s not rush. Let’s take things nice and slow. Because we’ve all the time in the world to get this right.

  I look about me, checking to see if anyone has seen my little accident, but it’s early morning and there’s no one, as far as I can see.

  I crouch, examining it. It’s small. Incredibly small, considering. It’s almost certainly not from my age. No. This is as advanced as it gets. The only thing that gives away its function is its shape. That lazy eight we’re now finding everywhere we go. The same shape that was there back at the start.

  Looking at it, I realise that I need to get someone in here to look at it. Someone who might make proper sense of it. Who has the expertise. Just in case it’s another time-trap, like the one that claimed Ernst. And so I jump, back to Moscow Central and to Svetov who is waiting beside the platform, as if expecting me.

  Which, of course, he is.

  ‘What is it?’ he asks, and I blink, surprised by even this partial knowledge of why I’m there.

  ‘It’s a platform,’ I say. ‘A platform the size of a pearl.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s what it is?’

  ‘Not one hundred per cent.’

  And so we send in Hans Luwer, our artefacts expert.

  He’s back in less than ten seconds, nodding to himself and pulling at his new-grown beard. ‘It’s a real beauty,’ he says, smiling broadly. ‘I’ve never seen its like. The sheer delicacy of its fabrication …’

  ‘A platform?’ Svetov asks.

  ‘A platform,’ he confirms. ‘Though I’d not advise any of our agents to try and use it.’

  Svetov frowns at that. ‘Then what use is it?’

  ‘None at all, if we want to be cautious.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘We take a risk,’ I say, deciding there and then that if that’s so then I’ll be the one to take it.

  Svetov is staring at me now, and then he shakes his head. ‘No, Otto. You can’t.’

  ‘Can’t I? I mean, aren’t I the one all this has been designed for?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Well, then. Let’s get whatever information we can. Send a few drones through – using my DNA – and try and establish where this links to, and what level of threat this involves. And then – and only then – I jump through.’

  Hans Luwers shrugs. ‘I don’t know, it … it feels to me like Kolya’s placed this there, right in your path.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely. He’d know you couldn’t resist.’

  And maybe that’s true. Only I need to see where this leads, even if it means placing myself in danger one more time.

  ‘This is our break,’ I say. ‘This, well, this could explain why Cherdiechnost changed. Where it all went wrong. If we ignore this …’

  ‘I’m not saying we ignore it,’ Svetov interrupts. ‘I just don’t want you to put your neck out this once. I mean, there’s no need. Why not let our foot soldiers go in? Let them find out what it’s all about and then jump through. To take any other action … well, it’s just crazy, Otto. You’re Master now, remember?’

  And that’s true. Or most of the time. Because that’s another of those things I keep forgetting.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘So send me back in while you decide. Give me a day or two to see what I can see, then we’ll address this matter again, in council, if you must. But don’t pass on this. This is important. We need to see where this leads.’

  474

  They’ve always been protective. Always wanted to safeguard me against my wilder instincts. Only this time I can’t help myself.

  Reaching the foot of the great sloping field, I see them, there where night left them, their lifeless bodies dangling from the trees.

  Pale and bruised, Katerina’s naked body turns slowly in the morning breeze, like a great haunch of meat, her face disfigured.

  I come closer, each step reluctant. Then, feeling a heaviness, an overwhelming hopelessness wash through me, I sink to my knees.

  Dead. My darling girl is dead. In this world as in many others. Dead beyond recall. For I know we will have tried.

  Ah yes, you say, but what of the Katerina I woke to? What of her?

  Fewer and fewer of her kind remain. As if the night sky itself were shutting down, all those tiny pinpoints of light winking out, one after another, until …

  I slowly haul myself back onto my feet, unsteady, afraid to look up again, lest my heart break once more.

  And turn my back, for there’s nothing to be done. No endless process of jumping back and forth in time can repair this.

  I walk away, knowing what I must do, yet sensing a futility so profound that it takes my breath. Seeing her on the cart at Krasnogorsk was bad enough. But this …

  This makes me want to end it now. To take a blade and …

  Clenching my fists, I stop. For this is what he wants. My despair is his delight. My love …

  But what does he feel? Or does he actually feel anything? The man seems inhuman, after all. So maybe he doesn’t feel. Maybe …

  I stop dead, noting the figure at the bottom of the slope, beside the gate. Is that Kolya? Come to witness my grief?

  Only it can’t be so, for, seeing me, this one raises an arm and waves and, as he begins the slow climb to where I stand, I realise that I know him, even if I cannot put a name to him. That for some reason I owe this one a life.

  Saratov … is that it?

  Only even as I put my hand out, even as I take my first step towards him, the air itself seems to shimmer and he’s gone. Turned to smoke and ashes.

  My mouth is dry now, a sense of nausea sweeping over me. He is playing with me, surely? Mocking my efforts. Showing me how easily he moves the pieces round the board. As in the old days.

  Only I can’t give up. I have to see this through.

  Walking down to where the figure vanished, I have the strong sense of being watched. Stranger yet, in the place where the figure stood, the ground is now discoloured, a fine layer of ash covering that part of the pathway. And when I jump …

  … it is not to Moscow Central, but to an old and bustling city. A place I’m sure I’ve been to, long ago now. I look about me, gathering clues. They speak English here, for a start. A broad countrified accent, like something from medieval times.

  London. This has to be London. And as I start making my way to the river, so I am grasped through time and vanish from that crowded sidewalk.

  475

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Svetov says, brushing me down. ‘You weren’t meant to go there. Not yet, anyway. We need to brief you first. Put things into context.’

  ‘Context?’

  ‘Some of it you know. Other parts …’

  And for some reason he grimaces.

  ‘Does it involve me dying?’

  He hesitates, then nods. ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘So where was that? The place you snatched me from just n
ow. It seemed … familiar. That river … I feel like I’ve been there before.’

  Svetov looks down. ‘We can’t tell you. Least … not all at once. We need to feed it to you, piece by tiny piece. We’ve tried it other ways, but …’

  He falls silent. Looks at me and shrugs. ‘I can’t say more, Otto. Only that if there are any answers to what’s happening, then they’re there. In the next place.’

  ‘And Kolya?’

  ‘We’ll come to that. But first let’s brief you. Or, at least, give you what we can. What you need to know. The rest … well, the rest is yet to come. It’s all folded in, Otto. Realities like Russian dolls.’

  ‘And the cards. The gypsy woman’s cards?’

  ‘They’re in your sack.’

  ‘You brought that back, then?’

  Svetov smiles. ‘I wasn’t going to leave it there. Not that you’ll need half of that stuff. But you never know.’

  ‘So where exactly are we going?’

  ‘Moscow Central.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘London. Back where it all begins.’

  Five

  Of Time and Tides

  476

  Imagine this. Imagine living the best part of your life in one single, uninterrupted flow, having your children, loving your wife, and, on top of all else, building something – Cherdiechnost: that was utterly worthwhile; that thoroughly deserved to be guarded and preserved for all time. So it was for me in those days – those weeks and months and wonderful long years – that followed on.

  Like one beautiful, endless summer.

  Living life as if it would never end. Children’s voices echoing across that sun-lit valley, joyful and high.

  And then – unexpectedly and abruptly – out. Detached from it all. Some strange new urgency calling me back once more to that which I’d oh-so-gladly surrendered. Thrown back into the game, as if the rest were nothing but a dream.

  Briefed and armed for war. That cherished reality reduced to little more than a distant memory. The loss of it so acute, so … painful, that to dwell too long on it might break a lesser man. Or is that true? For surely this is how soldiers have historically felt. Snatched away from everything they valued, everyone they loved.

  Gone, and no immediate returning. Not until the job was done.

  Not until …

  The incoming tide breaks against the rocks. There’s a sudden slush of pebbles, like the indrawn breath of a giant, and then I’m there once more. Back there where I’ve been so many times.

  477

  Shakespeare is a big, heavy-set man, and as he climbs into the boat ahead of me, I catch a glimpse of his face, the flesh deeply lined, the eyes melancholy. It’s June, but you would scarce believe it. The drizzling rain makes it seem like late October, grey cloud filling the sky, that same greyness reflected in the surface of the river.

  It is 1609 and this is London, this the Thames, and, as we take our seats and the boatman casts off, so I find myself seated just behind Will, wedged in among a dozen others, poorly dressed in their brown and grey rags, the rancid smell of them reminding me once more that I’m in another time, another place.

  The boat lies low in the water, the weight and number of its passengers surely unsafe, but this is the only way to cross, or it is for he whom I’m following.

  He’s silent, self-contained, but I know that his eyes take in everything. Yes, he’s a living sponge. Nothing evades his notice. Unless it’s me. But I’m fairly sure that he has registered my proximity; that he’s worked out from my clothes, from the very way I move, that I’m the stranger here.

  Only just how strange he does not know. For I have travelled fourteen centuries to be here, sharing a boat with him; here on this unseasonably dismal day.

  I know precisely where he’s been. Know why there’s such misery in his eyes. He’s been away from London eight days, staying with his sister in the Midlands, and now he’s returning to all the same problems he left behind him.

  No. Things have not been easy for him lately. But the boy’s death has put everything into perspective. His sister’s boy. Hence the journey north. Hence the sadness that pervades his every look, his every movement.

  Six years old he was, and as sweet a boy as any you could ask for. Three days he was sick – only three days – and then gone. No breath of his, no trace of his spirit in the air. Back to clay and worms, the dried earth rattling on the child-sized wooden box, the simple sight of which was – in its very smallness – a reason for fresh grief.

  We are out in the centre of the river now, the tidal current drawing us towards the distant shore, the boatman and his son pulling at the oars, every muscle tensed, straining to keep us from drifting too far downstream.

  If I did not know already that we’d survived, I’d be concerned for us all, the boat’s so heavily laden, but eventually we find ourselves drifting in towards the jetty on the Southwark side of the river, the boatman offering his hand to help me out, even as our man makes his way unassisted onto the old wooden structure, his heavy overnight bag slung over his right shoulder.

  As I thank the boatman with a coin, I see how our man looks about him, hesitating. There are houses here, close to the jetty, clustered about an ancient-looking church, and an inn. I know he hasn’t eaten since yester-evening, and as the day is rapidly drawing to a close, I see the change in his face as he decides to have a meal here and stay the night.

  What difference will a day make, after all?

  Oh, and I know what you’re thinking. Why has he come this way when it would have been easier to come down through the city itself?

  Only there’s good reason for that. The man owes money. He is heavily in debt, and what with the work going so badly he has no means of paying back a tenth of what he owes. Yes, and if he came in through the north of the city, someone would have been sure to spot him. And then what? Debtors’ prison and maybe even a beating before they dragged him away, and at his age he could be doing without any of that. Hence the long way round. Hence the boat. But tonight he’ll stay in Battersea, and in the morning set out early, with whatever other company he can find.

  Because this south shore of the Thames is dangerous. Cutthroats and footpads patrol the marshy river front, looking for easy pickings. Especially of a night.

  I follow him inside; see him look about and note the one free table on the far side of that shabby, dismal room. Just the smell of the air in here would put you off eating. Only I can’t be picky. I have a job to do. And so I make my way across, and, even as he sets his bag to one side and pulls off his cloak and takes his seat, so I step out in front of him, gesturing towards the empty place that’s facing him.

  ‘D’you mind if …?’

  He simply stares at me a moment, weariness and hostility etched in the deep lines of his face.

  ‘If you must.’

  He wants to be left alone. I can see that. Only I can’t let him. I need to get in close with the man, and this really is the only way.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, setting my own bag down and pulling out the chair. ‘I’d not bother you, only I haven’t eaten since this morning, and this looks like the only inn for miles …’

  He looks down, silent for a moment. If he wants to spurn me, he’ll do it now. Only he’s not that kind of man. Not normally. No. Normally he likes nothing better than to meet new people and gather up their stories. It’s all grist to the mill, as he likes to say.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘Only I’ve spent the whole day travelling. I’m tired and, well, not the greatest company.’

  I put a hand up. ‘I understand. I wouldn’t have bothered you only …’ I stop, then frown, as if, in those brief few seconds I’ve pieced things together. ‘You’re Shakespeare, aren’t you? The playwright.’

  ‘So?’ he asks.

  ‘So I can see you’re having difficulties. Maybe I can help.’

  Shakespeare laughs. ‘You’re a bold one. And no, I don’t think you can help me. Unless you’re my twi
n, separated at birth, and I’d say there was no real chance of that, comparing the two of us.’ He pauses, then. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I was a farm manager,’ I say.

  Shakespeare studies me again, nodding as he does. ‘So I can see. Those arms of yours.’

  I am about to say more when a serving wench approaches, a plump dumpling of a girl with greasy black hair and dirt under her fingernails.

  ‘What you want?’ she asks.

  ‘Stew,’ Will says. ‘And make sure it’s hot.’

  ‘An’ you?’ she asks, looking to me.

  ‘Same for me. Piping hot!’

  And she goes away.

  I sit, smiling apologetically. ‘That accent?’

  He softens. ‘I’m a Midlander, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘I thought so. You visiting?’

  ‘London? No. I live here. Been here since I was a young man.’

  ‘Then why …?’

  I meet his eyes, then look down, as if I’ve suddenly surmised what he’s up to.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, cousin. None of my business. Only to say … any help you need. I mean … the river path … it’s not the safest of ways.’

  He’s watching me now, the faintest trace of suspicion in his eyes. ‘And you?’

  ‘Me? I’ve come up from Wiltshire. Set off two days back. Got a brother not far from here in Southwark. Thought I’d stay with him while I seek out a job.’

  It’s all a lie, as you know. And it’s not one I am capable of maintaining for too long. I’m not that good an actor – he’d see right through me in no time – but right now it works. I can almost sense him relax.

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘Do?’ I grin. ‘Anything and everything, providing the pay’s all right.’

  He sits back a little. ‘You should take care. London’s a dangerous place.’

  ‘So my cousin says. He was a stonemason, till he broke his hand.’

  ‘That’s foul luck.’

  ‘It was indeed. Though some might say that borrowing the money in the first place was the worst of his luck.’