The Years of Longdirk- The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  "Senor, I can add nothing to what I have already told you. If you wish to dismiss me from your service, then Jaume and I will head south at once and seek to enlist with that company we just passed. I shall regret that, but I will go without ill feelings. Senora de Gomez will, of course, make her own choice. Any questions about Brother Bernat you must address to him."

  "Demons! You'd been tortured." The don seemed to be making a strenuous effort to control himself, but the outcome still hung in the balance.

  "When, senor? By whom? I fell down in clear view of the others."

  The don chewed his lip. "I don't know. I should very much like to know, though. If I give you my oath not to repeat what you tell me to anyone, will you explain?"

  "Does that 'anyone' include the Inquisition, senor?"

  Don Ramon's glare slowly changed to a smile, an uncomfortably knowing and menacing smile. "Did you tell them what they wanted to know?"

  That was not the question Toby had expected, but it was an encouraging one.

  "Not as far as I can remember." That felt good; it felt very good.

  "Then you are a brave man."

  "If the stories I have heard about Don Ramon de Nuñez y Pardo are even partly true, senor, then so are you."

  Pause. Calculation. The mood had changed now.

  "Are you trying to bargain with me?"

  "I require certain guarantees, senor."

  "Very well, I shall include the Inquisition in my oath, but you will tell me how your companion recognized me that first day we met." The don had never commented on that miracle before. Obviously he had not forgotten it.

  "That is part of the same story." Toby smiled without meaning to. Whatever had happened to his intention of heading south? "Tonight, when we camp, I shall tell you everything. I warn you, senor, that it is a very strange tale, but you come into it, and therefore I am eager to share it with you."

  To Toby's astonishment, the don laughed and leaned down to offer a hand. This time he did not want it kissed. His grip was almost as brutal as Graham Johnson's.

  "For courage, then, Senor Longdirk." He even managed to pronounce the outlandish name reasonably well. "Tonight."

  "Tonight, senor. You have my promise."

  "Sworn on the honor of a smuggler, mutineer, and deserter? In exchange I offer the sacred word of a hidalgo of Castile." Don Ramon straightened in his saddle and glanced back along the line. "The siege train is lagging, Campeador. Go and find out who is responsible and have them flogged."

  Toby saluted and stepped aside. As soon as Atropos had gone by him, he wiped sweat from his forehead. Had he just put his head in a noose—or his wrists, perhaps?

  Nevertheless, Baron Oreste's macabre executions were starting to make more sense. That possible future supported Toby's instinct that the lunatic don could be trusted.

  Hamish would burst blood vessels when he heard of this development.

  2

  It was Toby's intention to drop back to the rear of the column and have his promised chat with Hamish, but every group forced him to tarry and discuss the mercenaries' news. Most of them also interrogated him closely on exactly what had happened to him that morning. He kept repeating the same story until he almost believed it himself, but none of them seemed truly convinced. Perhaps he didn't look like the sort of person who would trip over his own feet in a meadow and knock himself out. He wondered what they did make of the episode, and what they would say if some Dominican friars appeared and began asking questions about him.

  Eventually he found himself trudging along beside Hamish, a few paces behind Thunderbolt. There were clouds building ahead, to the north. Was that an omen or just a sign that the weather was going to break at last?

  Hamish's mood had improved. He seemed quite cheerful as he said, "I still think you're crazy." He often thought that.

  "You believe in my visions now?"

  "I think the friar's explanation makes sense, although I see a weakness in it. If he's right, you're heading right back to the torture chamber. For spirits' sake, turn around while you still have a chance! You should get out of here like a racing camel on skates."

  "I do get to Barcelona eventually, somehow. The other visions prove that. I'll try not to cut off your —"

  "No, they don't!" When Hamish smirked like that he thought he was being clever. He usually was.

  "They don't?"

  "Listen!" He pondered for a moment, probably breaking his mental processes into small pieces that lesser minds could digest. "If the hob is jerking you back in time, then you shouldn't know anything at all about the future that won't happen, although something very similar may. Or very different. The fragments you do remember are a ... never mind that for now. The only thing you can count on is the timing of the vision. That's the moment when you come back from the future and start over."

  Toby heaved his pack higher—there was no comfortable position for it now. "I suppose you're right, obviously what seems like hours or days to me lasts no time at all for anyone else. One minute you see me walking along happily whistling 'The Lass up the Glen' and the next I'm lying flat and howling. From then on I'm in reality again."

  "It may only be reality temporarily, until it gets wiped out the next time," Hamish said gloomily. "You've seen two visions of Barcelona."

  "Possibly two visions of one future."

  "No, two separate futures. You came back twice."

  Um! Good point. "All right. I got there twice, and I will have to arrive there eventually."

  "No! That's what I'm trying to tell you. Those visions came before the one of the Inquisition. That means you got to Barcelona twice—at least twice, because we don't know how many times the hob had played this trick without leaving you a vision. Let's ignore that tangle. First you ended up chained in a dungeon and the hob rescued you eventually—we don't know when. The second time you were Oreste's executioner, and it pulled you back again. It was on the next try that you met the Inquisition. This is the fourth time, at least, that you've passed this way. You may never get to Barcelona now."

  That took some thought. Too much thought. "I don't see why."

  "Because," Hamish said in the same dealing-with-an-idiot tone that his father had used on young Toby Strangerson just before he lost his temper, "if the Inquisition episode came first, and then you got to Barcelona and were yanked back again, the Inquisition vision would be wiped out, because you saw that later than the Barcelona vision, even though you think the Inquisition thing happens in Tortosa, which you get to first. Clear?"

  Toby groaned. "I'll have to take your word for it."

  "Am I ever wrong? You foresaw the demons before Valencia, but we went through Valencia before we met the demons. We can never know what happened the first time in Valencia that didn't happen the second, except that it must have been bad. Nothing happened the second time—the time we remember—but if you had actually died there the second time, you would never have met the demons, vision or not. Yes, you apparently got past Tortosa twice, but the third time you didn't. You may never get to Barcelona!"

  "Not on this try, you mean." But how many times did he want to be tortured? Suppose the hob's rescue didn't work the next time? What of that endless loop he had discussed with Brother Bernat?

  "That's why we must turn back right away," Hamish concluded triumphantly. "There's no other sane course. When the going gets tough, the smart get lost."

  Toby walked on.

  "You don't owe these people anything, Longdirk! In fact, you're a danger to them. Brother Bernat can look after himself. Gracia is probably safer with the don than she is with you."

  "But there isn't any other road to Barcelona."

  "You don't have to go to Barcelona!"

  "I want to go to Barcelona."

  "Idiot!" Hamish shouted. He had lost his temper now and sounded just like his father. "Turn back and join Johnson's party. We can catch up to them. We could be useful as guides. They'll let us go south with them."

  "I got to
Barcelona twice in three tries. Or will get."

  "Oh, you stupid lunk! You don't know what was different about the third time. I think I do, though. I think it's the don and the others."

  "Take me through this one slowly."

  "If I go any slower I'll grow roots. Something was different the third time, some choice or chance event. I think the first two times we didn't join the don and his party. We went on by ourselves, with or without Gracia."

  "But I knew the don when I cut his head off."

  Hamish scowled harder than ever and then conceded that much. "So you'd met him. That doesn't mean you traveled with him. I was really surprised when you agreed to. You never accept a master unless you absolutely have to. Why did you?"

  "Hmm. I'm not sure." But Toby was beginning to see where the logic was leading him, and he didn't like it. It was as ominously familiar as the scenery.

  "Was it because you'd just seen yourself cutting off his head?"

  "Maybe."

  Hamish said, "Yes it was! It made you curious. But you couldn't have seen that the first two times, because it hadn't happened yet. So that was what was different the third time—you became Ramon's campeador, and when we got to Tortosa someone in this group betrayed you to the Inquisition. Now you're following that same route again."

  "You don't know that. You're guessing." But it was a nastily convincing theory—Toby had surprised even himself when he'd kissed the don's hand. Now he'd promised to confide in him. Fortunately Hamish didn't know that yet. "If Oreste has set the Inquisition on me and given them that poster, they don't need informers."

  "You and me could slip by on our own. We could swim the river if we had to. Probably that's what we did the first two times."

  "We still can, I suppose. Join up again on the other side."

  "And how do you explain that to Senora Collel? If inquisitors start questioning her, she's liable to accuse everyone of every sort of hexing ever imagined. If you've disappeared, she'll suspect the worst and set the dogs on you for certain."

  Toby couldn't fault the logic, but it wasn't convincing him. He wasn't going to turn back. He was going on to Barcelona. Just brute stubbornness, maybe—he had said he would, so he would—or a show of courage, like shaking his head at the tormentors to prove to himself that he wasn't broken yet. Perhaps Hamish was right and the hob had driven him crazy, for what sane man would risk the Inquisition?

  "I'll ask Brother Bernat's advice," he said. "I suggested to the don that we scout ahead before we advance in force."

  "Force?" Hamish sneered. "He'll call for bombardment with cannon followed by a cavalry charge. Then ask your clever friend why your visions are so appropriate."

  "Huh?"

  The teacher's son was smirking again. "How many days were you in the hands of the Inquisition?"

  Toby shrugged and winced at the results. "No way of telling. I have clear memories of an hour or two in the torture chamber, but Bernat thinks they might have worked on me for longer than that." Until they killed him. "And I can remember remembering a few days earlier—being questioned, being shut up in a stinking little cell."

  "I could smell it on you when you came back. I still can. So why did the hob pick that particular hour or two? Why didn't you have a vision of the time you were shut up in the cell instead? The same with Barcelona. The hob is very choosy in what it lets you remember, isn't it?"

  To that, also, Toby had no answer. Everything Hamish said made sense, even when he went on to call him a brainless mule, a goat butting an oak tree, and several other things less complimentary.

  "We'll talk about it tonight," he promised, and set off up the line again.

  Miguel and Rafael and the two Elinors were in even worse spirits than usual, taking their spite out on Thunderbolt with unnecessary whacks. Toby tried his faltering Catalan on them to find out why.

  Rafael said, "Where is everybody?" He gestured at the valley they were traversing. Sierra del Montsia was steep and wooded, but Sierra Grossa displayed a gentle and obviously fertile slope. Although houses had been burned, the overall damage was much less conspicuous than it had been farther south. "You said the war was all gone from here. Why have the people not returned?" He glowered with deep suspicion.

  Toby had been wondering the same and had no answer.

  He went on to converse with the women, and the first he came to was Gracia, strolling along by herself but apparently happy in her daydreams. When she noticed him walking at her side, her contentment turned to doubt.

  "You are recovered from your misadventure, senor?"

  "A little bruised still. A guard with two left feet is not a convincing guardian, I am afraid."

  "Don Ramon would never do such a thing."

  "No, I'm sure he wouldn't."

  She sighed blissfully. "He is wonderful, is he not? So handsome, so strong! My voices are very happy that he has taken me under his protection."

  "You have told him about your voices?"

  "Oh yes! He says it is a sign that I am especially favored by the spirits, a tribute to the purity of my soul."

  The don's motives in saying so cast doubt on the purity of his own soul, Toby decided, and then wondered if he was merely jealous. Of course he was jealous! The Gracias of the world were forever forbidden to him, but he should not grudge her this romantic delusion, however brief it might turn out to be. It was better than brooding about ghosts. Leaving the lady to her fantasies of noble romance, he went on to the horsewomen. High on her perch, Eulalia ignored him conspicuously. Senora Collel regarded him with open suspicion.

  "How exactly did Brother Bernat heal you, Campeador?"

  "He did almost nothing, senora," he said, remembering Hamish's perceptive prediction about her gossiping to the Inquisition. "I was dazed from striking my head, and from that I recovered by myself. I had also sprained my shoulder. He is skilled in massage. That is all. I should not be so clumsy."

  "Senor Campbell is not at all clumsy!" Eulalia said loftily.

  "You should know, child!" snapped the senora.

  Toby found the remark exceedingly humorous and bellowed with laughter. When he saw that the slut was blushing, he realized that he was being jealous again, and spiteful as well. He escaped from the presence of the formidable pair as soon as he decently could. He had never understood women, and according to Brother Bernat he could never hope to.

  Next in line were the Brusi packhorses, with Josep leading them while chatting with Father Guillem. The stringy, unassertive youth and massive, forceful cleric were an odd but fortunate pairing for a necessary discussion:

  "Father, Josep, may we have a word about provisions? The mercenaries inform us that there is food to be bought in Tortosa."

  "As I am excessively tired of horseflesh," the monk declaimed in his rumbling voice, "that is good news. Brother Bernat carries no money, of course, but I shall provide for him and the child."

  Josep caught Toby's eye briefly and looked away with a quiet smile. "I expect the prices will be exorbitant. Would an advance upon your fee come in useful, Campeador?"

  "Very much so, senor. And while I should never dare inquire, I suspect the don may also be running a little low on ready cash."

  "That would not surprise me."

  As a person, the boy was twice the man his father had been. Whether he could be ruthless enough to run the family business, only time would tell.

  "Would you be so generous as to have a word with Squire Francisco on the matter?"

  "Ah yes, the squire." Josep smiled gently at the landscape. "I shall certainly speak with the old warrior."

  There was no overt hint there, but the choice of words suggested that Josep had guessed the lady's secret. Toby wondered who else had. Certainly not Senora Collel, or she would have told everyone by now.

  So the food problem was solved. The senora and the Thunderbolt contingent both seemed to have adequate supplies left, as did Josep himself. That left the Inquisition. The domineering monk was more practical than Brother B
ernat, although much less likeable. Guillem still believed that Toby should have put his fighting skills at the disposal of his rightful feudal overlord, whoever that might be. The two of them had come to a wary truce, though, and the cleric might be a valuable advisor on strategy. A little tactical bending of the truth could be justified:

  "Father, the mercenary we met mentioned the possibility of the Inquisition examining travelers crossing the bridge at Tortosa." Johnson had discussed the subject, after all, even if he had not brought it up himself. "Do you suppose that Jaume and myself, being foreigners, may be harassed there?"

  Father Guillem uttered a deep rumble like distant thunder. "That is very bad news! The Inquisition is notoriously self-willed and answerable to no one. If the inquisitors so choose, they could hold us up for days or even weeks. They are very skilled at asking the questions that will obtain the sort of answers they want. Before you know it, you find you have accused somebody of something, or even confessed to it yourself. It may be wise for me to pass the word around about this, Campeador. You will not mind?"

  "I should be very grateful if you would, Father."

  "The main thing is to keep your answers short and absolutely truthful." The monk peered around Josep to fix his penetrating stare on Toby. "For example, this morning you fell and twisted your shoulder. Brother Bernat massaged it for you. There is no harm in that. But add some speculation, and it could become something the Inquisition would feel bound to investigate at length. They might devote years to it. You understand what I am saying, my son?"

  He was saying that he knew a lot more about Brother Bernat than Toby did. He must know all about Toby and the hob, too, for the friar had been going to tell him the story.

  "I understand very well, Father."

  "For my part," Josep said cheerfully to no one in particular, "on this journey I have neither heard nor seen anything worth bothering any learned inquisitors with."

  "Good!" Father Guillem boomed. "But if they tell you that others have said they did and ask why you are not confirming this testimony, what do you say?"

  Josep looked at him in surprise, then at Toby. He frowned, less sure of himself now. "That isn't very nice, is it? I stick to my original statement, of course."