The Empire of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘Two of them,’ Seydlitz adds. ‘We killed them.’

  Or think you did.

  Hecht smiles. ‘Do we know who they were?’

  Kramer looks to Seydlitz. ‘We’re not sure.’

  ‘Not sure?’ Hecht’s eyes narrow. ‘Then how do you know?’

  ‘We overheard them,’ Kramer says.

  ‘We’d tracked them down, to an inn.’

  ‘They were discussing what to do next.’

  ‘So we pre-empted things.’

  Hecht doesn’t even blink. ‘In what way?’

  ‘With a grenade.’ And Seydlitz grins as he says it.

  ‘Ah …’ But before Hecht can ask, Kramer intercedes.

  ‘We buried what remained of them. Made sure the site was hidden.’

  Hecht smiles. ‘Good. Then maybe this once they’ll stay dead and buried.’

  Unlikely, I think, knowing how carefully the Russians track their agents, how they’ll venture back and extract their agents moments before we’ve acted against them.

  But both Kramer and Seydlitz are novices at this; they’ve barely half a dozen trips between them and it’s clear they’ve let their enthusiasm cloud their judgement. But Hecht says nothing. He smiles at them, as if they’ve done well.

  ‘Is that all?’

  Kramer shakes his head and looks to Seydlitz, who produces a slip of paper.

  ‘What’s this?’ Hecht asks, handing the paper to me. I look at it and frown. On it is drawn a figure of eight lying on its side. It is like the symbol for infinity, except that drawn inside each loop is an arrow, the two arrows facing each other.

  ‘It was a pendant,’ Seydlitz explains. ‘A big silver thing. The fat one had it round his neck.’

  ‘And the other? Did he wear one?’

  Kramer shrugs. ‘He may have done. There wasn’t that much of him left.’

  Hecht nods then looks to me. ‘What do you make of it, Otto?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some kind of religious sect?’

  ‘Maybe.’ But I know that if Hecht doesn’t know, then it’s unlikely anyone else does. The question is: is it significant or just some piece of decorative jewellery?

  Hecht watches them a moment longer, then nods to himself. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘I want to hear it all.’

  10

  They shower, then join us in the smallest of the lecture rooms. There, with the doors locked and the cameras running, we go through it step by step.

  I stand at the back, looking on, as Hecht faces the two across the table. Neither looks nervous, but why should they? I am the one who made the mistake. Or so I’m about to find out.

  The story’s pretty straightforward. While Kramer infiltrated the Curonians, Seydlitz went directly to the Brotherhood’s headquarters at Marienburg where, posing as an emissary of the Sword Brothers, the Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ in Livonia, he’d spent the best part of a month sniffing around, under the pretext of soliciting aid for his own Knight Brothers who, at the battle of Saule earlier in the year, had suffered an almost terminal mauling at the hands of the Lithuanians.

  ‘So,’ Hecht says, looking to Seydlitz first. ‘What did you find out?’

  Seydlitz sits up straighter. Even dressed simply, as he is, he looks every inch the knight. ‘I didn’t recognise them at first.’

  ‘Was it these two?’

  Two faces appear on a large screen to the side, larger than life. Seydlitz is surprised, but I just grin. Hecht sent in another agent and didn’t tell them.

  ‘Yes,’ Kramer answers. His voice is a whisper.

  ‘Ah. Go on.’

  Seydlitz tears his gaze from the image on the screen and looks back at Hecht. ‘They were posing as envoys from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Ninth. And they were good. Very convincing.’

  Hecht nodded. ‘They speak excellent Italian, so I’m told.’

  ‘Did,’ Kramer says.

  Seydlitz glances at him, then continues. ‘Anyway, I didn’t suspect them at first. Not for a moment. Then, one night, I went down to the harbour. I had this notion that maybe the Russians were posing as traders, and there they were, the two of them, talking to a rather wild-looking fellow – a boatman – in fluent Curonian.’

  ‘They saw you?’

  Seydlitz smiles. ‘No. It was very dark. The thinnest sliver of moon and heavy cloud. But I could see them by the light of one of the braziers that were burning along the harbour front. I hid behind a herring boat and listened. That’s when I found out. After that I began to watch them. Noted who they spoke to, who they went to visit.’

  ‘And then?’

  Seydlitz pauses. ‘It was about six days later. I turned up at the palace and they were gone. I asked about and no one had seen them since the previous evening. I thought I’d lost them, and then I remembered the fellow they’d met up with – the Curonian – and I went down to the harbour again.’

  ‘He was there, then?’

  ‘Yes, but another hour and I’d have missed him. He was waiting on the tide.’ Seydlitz smiles. ‘I put my knife to his throat and questioned him. It seems they’d paid him a visit the night before. Told him they were heading up the coast to rendezvous with his fellow Curonians. He’d offered to take them, but they’d not been interested. Said they had their own transport.’

  Hecht nods thoughtfully. ‘They jumped, then?’

  Kramer answers him. ‘Must have done. One moment they were in Marienburg, the next a hundred miles up the coast.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘Yes. It was late. We were eating supper when they strode into the camp. The Chief of the Curonians, Axel he called himself, was surprised to see them. It was clear he wasn’t expecting them back so soon. But it was also clear – and pretty quickly – that the news they’d brought was just what he’d wanted to hear. They had a bit of a party that night. Those Russians sure can drink!’

  ‘Could,’ Seydlitz says pointedly.

  Hecht looks to him. ‘So what was happening back at Marienburg?’

  ‘I found that out later, when I tried to see the Hochmeister. I was told he had already left, with a small company of knights.’

  ‘You didn’t see him go, then?’

  ‘No. He just slipped away. Pretty secretively, if you ask me. But then I asked around, and one of my contacts – one of the higher-placed clerics – told me he’d heard a rumour about Mindaugas wanting to meet up with the Hochmeister.’

  ‘Mindaugas, the Grand Prince of Lithuania?’

  Seydlitz nods. ‘He wouldn’t say why, but it was pretty obvious. After his victory at Saule, Mindaugas was in the ascendant, and the Knight Brothers knew it. Hochmeister Balk knew he needed to buy time. A temporary peace with the Lithuanians would give him that.’

  ‘So you think that’s the reason he went to Christburg? To meet with Mindaugas and arrange a peace?’

  Seydlitz looks past Hecht at me. ‘I can’t be certain, but it seems likely, don’t you think? More likely than that he’d make that perilous journey just to enrol a single knight – however worthy – into the Order.’

  I feel some of the tension leave me at Seydlitz’s words, and thank him inwardly for saying them. Maybe it wasn’t my fault, after all. Maybe this was – as Seydlitz and Kramer are suggesting – a well-worked Russian plan to get to Meister Balk and kill him and so destabilise the situation. Yet it is some coincidence, if so. And why not just take him, there in Marienburg? It’s unlike the Russians not to be direct.

  Hecht looks to Kramer. ‘What happened next?’

  Kramer looks to Seydlitz. ‘We met up. At the pre-arranged jump location. Traded information. Then decided to jump back to the Curonian encampment and follow the Russians. See where they went, what they did.’

  ‘You didn’t think they’d just jump home?’

  The two of them look surprised at that. It’s clearly not occurred to them before now.

  Hecht pursues the point. ‘You don’t think they might have waited for you? Deliberately travelled by horseba
ck down the coast so that you’d find them and make an attempt against their lives?’

  ‘Waited?’ Seydlitz looks aghast. ‘But why should they do that? They didn’t even know we were there!’

  ‘Didn’t they?’ Hecht pauses, then says, ‘As you might have guessed, I sent in another agent. Just to be safe. To protect you. And what he discovered was interesting.’

  He turns in his seat, indicating the screen. ‘Our friend on the left there is named Kabanov, and his fellow – the largish man – is named Postovsky. They’re both new to this era, which is probably why you – and Otto, there – didn’t recognise them. That said, they’ve clearly done their homework well. Well enough to fool you, Max, and many a better agent, too. But even so, they made mistakes. Once alerted to them, our man jumped back to when they first arrived in Marienburg and kept a close eye.’

  Seydlitz looks up. ‘Who was it?’

  Hecht smiles. ‘Our agent? You want to know?’

  Freisler, I say to myself, a moment before Hecht confirms it.

  Both men look thoughtful now. Neither meets Hecht’s eyes.

  ‘So what did he find out?’ I ask, walking over to the table.

  Hecht looks up at me. ‘I believe they knew who you were, Otto. And that we were sending other agents in.’

  ‘Not possible,’ I say. ‘I took such care.’

  And it was true. I had spent time in Thuringia, establishing my credentials as a knight, then rode all the way to Marienburg, along with other knight-supplicants, so that when the time came they could speak for me and guarantee my authenticity. It simply wasn’t possible that they had penetrated my disguise.

  ‘Freisler thinks they got lucky. That one of their agents spotted you before you spotted him. If so, it would be easy to jump him out of there and replace him.’

  ‘And is there any evidence that they did that?’

  ‘Freisler thinks so. He traced them back, and discovered that there was just such a change of agent shortly after you arrived in Marienburg.’

  ‘And who was there before?’

  ‘Dankevich.’

  ‘Dankevich? Is he certain?’

  Hecht nods.

  ‘Shit …’

  There’s a moment’s silence, and then Kramer asks. ‘So are they dead?’

  ‘The Russians?’ Hecht smiles. ‘What do you think?’

  Both men look down, deflated now, but Hecht seems unaffected.

  ‘It was rash, perhaps, to ambush the Russians, only you already had all the information you needed. You knew who they’d spoken to, and who the traitors were. That could be helpful in some future campaign. All in all, you did well. But for now, we do nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Kramer looks horrified. But I understand. For any of our schemes to succeed we rely upon an element of surprise – we need to be able to spring the trap before they can get any of their agents into that time-line to combat us.

  Hecht spells it out. ‘I’m not going to waste good resources getting drawn into a tit-for-tat over a very minor time-line. As you know, the Russians have more agents than us – a hell of a lot more – and there’s nothing they like better than to involve us in a fire-fight over nothing.’

  Kramer makes to object again, but Hecht raises a hand, brooking no argument.

  ‘We leave it. Understand me, Hans? We let it go.’

  11

  ‘Why Seydlitz?’ I ask, when he and I are alone again.

  ‘Because the Elders have agreed.’

  ‘Barbarossa?’

  Hecht nods.

  ‘Then …’

  ‘Seydlitz didn’t know. Only I wanted him to get a taste of it again. It’s been a while.’

  Almost three years, if I’ve heard right.

  ‘You think he’s ready?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  I nod, remembering how I felt when my first project was green-lit by the Elders. ‘What backup are you giving him?’

  ‘He’ll lead a team of eight.’

  ‘Eight!’ It’s a lot. Twice what we usually send in. But then, this is a major operation – a direct assault upon the very heartland of Russia – and if this works … ‘Am I …?’

  ‘No, Otto. I want you at a distance from this one.’

  I don’t quite understand what he means, but I bow my head anyway, obedient to his wishes.

  ‘So when does he start?’

  Hecht stands, then walks over to the bookshelves. He takes down a book and, turning back, hands it to me. ‘He’s begun already. I sent him in an hour back.’

  ‘But …’ And then I laugh. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how elastic Time is here in Four-Oh. For though Seydlitz was with us only moments before, it’s an easy matter to wait a while, send him back a few hours, then send him back again, to a thousand years in the Past.

  ‘The platform was busy the next few hours,’ Hecht says, by way of illumination, which explains how he knew when to be at the platform to greet Kramer and Seydlitz.

  And the book?

  I look to Hecht, puzzled. It’s a collection of Russian folk tales.

  ‘Open it. To the title page.’

  I open it and stare, because there, on the title page, is a hand-written dedication, and beneath it, the same symbol the Russian wore around his neck … the lazy-eight with the facing twin arrows.

  I try to make out the signature, but it’s almost unreadable. ‘Who is it?’ I ask, but Hecht only shrugs.

  ‘Maybe we should find out.’ And he smiles. ‘Just in case.’

  12

  That night I dream.

  I am back there, in the summer of 1236. Sunlight bathes the broad, flat rock on which we rest, laying a veil of gold upon the river below us and the trees beyond. There are five of us – Johannes, Conrad, Luder, Werner and I – brothers-in-arms, waiting there in the warmth of that July afternoon for Meister Dietrich to return from leading a scouting party into the forest on the far bank.

  He has been gone since early morning, looking for pagan settlements amid that wilderness of trees. It has been some time – almost a year – since we last raided them, and they have grown incautious once more. Or so the Meister claims.

  Johannes is the first to suggest it. He makes a comment on the smell of young Werner, and, laughing, roughly playful, Conrad helps Johannes strip the young man and throw him from the rock, naked, into the water. He surfaces, spluttering yet laughing, taking it in the spirit in which it was meant, then turns on to his back and floats there, treading water.

  ‘Come in!’ he yells, and splashes water up at us. ‘It’s wonderful!’

  No sooner is the invitation made, than Conrad jumps from the rock, a high, flailing jump that ends only feet from where Werner is treading water. Johannes and Luder follow moments later, and, reluctant but grinning nonetheless, I slip out of my clothes and, throwing my arms out, dive straight as an arrow into that golden sheet of dazzling, shimmering light.

  As I surface, there are cheers. Werner looks at me in awe. ‘Where did you learn to do that, Otto?’

  I gasp, gripped by the coldness of the water, but stay there, making no move to get out, determined to show no sign of weakness before my Brothers.

  ‘My father taught me when I was a boy.’

  ‘You were a boy, Otto?’ Johannes says, mocking my earnestness, and the others laugh. But not at my expense. There’s a kindness in their laughter. The mockery is gentle.

  I duck down and swim towards the river’s bed, thrusting myself down through the chill, clear water until I’m below them, their pale, strong legs kicking slowly in the pale greenness above me.

  I surface right between Conrad and Luder, surprising them both, and, placing a hand on each of their heads, thrust them down, ducking them.

  For a moment the three of us struggle in the water, laughing and gasping, and then Luder kicks back, away, shaking the water from his head as he does.

  My strength surprises them. I know they think me soft. Comparatively, anyway. For these are the toughest, hardest, mos
t resilient bunch of men I’ve ever known. Their austere self-reliance – their ability to survive in any conditions – astonishes me. They seem to need so little.

  We climb back up on to the rock and sit there for a while, at ease in our nakedness, letting our bodies dry in the heat of the sun, enjoying the simplicity of the day. For a while all are silent, as if keeping to their vows, then Johannes stands and, after stretching, pulls on his clothes again. All but the armour.

  We do the same, then sit there, staring out over the canopy of the forest. It seems to stretch to the very edge of the world. In the daylight there’s a real beauty to the scene, but at night …

  I shudder and look to Werner, noting how he is watching me.

  ‘I miss them,’ he says. ‘My family. My brothers especially.’

  ‘Ah …’

  But Johannes has less time for sentiment. ‘We do our Lady’s business,’ he says, and all bow their heads, as if in a moment’s prayer, at the reminder.

  But Werner is young. Only a minute passes before he looks to me again and asks. ‘Do you miss your family, Otto?’

  ‘I have no family.’

  Werner’s mouth opens the tiniest fraction, as if that explains a lot.

  ‘They were killed,’ I add, then look away.

  ‘Is that why you came here?’

  I nod. But I know they are all looking at me now. We have these moments. Quiet, reflective moments, when it is possible to say such things. When the vows we have taken are less important suddenly than understanding why we’re here, and whether it’s for the same sad reasons.

  For as hard and self-reliant as these men are, they are also very much alone, even in such company as this. Lost souls, they are, seeking atonement. But theirs is also a steely, unshakable faith, and if they knew who I really was they would kill me without a moment’s thought.

  Silence falls again. I close my eyes, then hear a sharp intake of breath. My eyes flick open and I reach out for my sword. And then I see what it is, and relax.

  In the shallows on the far side of the river, in the shade of the overhanging trees, a huge black bear has come to drink. She stands up straight for a moment, looking across at us, sensing us there, and then she turns and, with a strange, protective little gesture, beckons her cubs forward.