The Empire of Time

by David Wingrove

  Urte is waiting for me in her room. As the door hisses open and I step through, I see that she’s made a real effort for tonight. There are sweet-scented candles and, in the far corner of the long, shadowy room, she’s filled a bath.

  I smile at her, though I feel little like smiling. Though it’s my duty, I don’t have to be unpleasant to her. It’s just that I can’t do this like I used to. It used to be … what? Recreation, I guess you’d call it, and I used to enjoy the physical side of it, but now – since I’ve known Katerina – I find it very hard. Each time is a betrayal.

  Urte is naked. She has a nice body, and as the door hisses shut, she slips from her bed and comes across to me, taking both my hands in hers.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ she says, looking up into my face, and I find myself at once feeling guilty. Guilty because she clearly wants me and, try as I might, I know I don’t want her. I just can’t give her back all the love she seems to want to give me.

  Not that this is about love. This is duty. How we maintain our bloodstock.

  Urte is one of the most intelligent of our women, She’s our astrophysics specialist, though what she doesn’t know of higher maths and electrical engineering isn’t worth knowing. In any other time or place she would be considered a Meister. A mere Frau she is not. But like all of us she has no choice in this. We serve the Volk.

  She leads me across and, as I undress, she sings softly to herself, watching me all the while. Naked, I wait for her next move and, as I thought, she takes my hands again and climbs into the bath. We sit there, facing each other.

  ‘You’re a real hero, Otto. You know that?’

  ‘Yes?’

  But I don’t feel like it. I feel like a man who has just killed an old friend.

  She leans closer and plants a soft kiss on my chest, just beneath the hollow of my neck, then places her hands gently on my shoulders. It’s pleasant, yet I have to fight the urge to pull away; to climb from the bath and run from there.

  I close my eyes. ‘I’m glad it’s over.’

  ‘Mmm …’ And her lips move down, her tongue now playing at my nipples. Yet if she senses my reluctance, she doesn’t show it. Or maybe she thinks she can simply win me over. I am a man, after all. And in a sense she’s right. I’ve never failed yet. I’ve done my duty by the Volk. Once a week since my eighteenth birthday I’ve done this, each week with a different woman. It’s how, in this small community of ours, we attempt to diversify the gene pool. Just how many children I have from this is hard to tell. Hecht knows, I’m sure, but we are not allowed to. All of the children are our children; all of the women our women.

  I try to think that way right now, but it’s hard to. I liked Gruber, and the thought of him having died in that explosion haunts me. I keep seeing the misery in his face, and I’m conscious that I don’t know why – that I didn’t even attempt to find out why.

  Even so, my cock grows stiff, my body responds to her gentle ministrations.

  It’s late when I wake, and for a time I wonder where I am. I roll over and find that Urte’s next to me, her eyes closed, her tiny, compact body on its back, her small breasts barely prominent. For a moment I am somewhere else, and the sense of loss makes me almost want to cry, only what’s the point? It’s no use trying to change things.

  ‘Otto?’

  Her eyes are open now. She studies me a while, unconcerned that I do not answer her.

  ‘Otto … why can’t we women go back in Time?’

  I laugh. ‘You want to, then?’

  She nods, her eyes never leaving mine, and I realise that this matters to her.

  ‘Because it’s dangerous.’

  ‘The Russians send their women back.’

  ‘The Russians are barbarians.’

  She’s silent a while, then. ‘You know, sometimes I feel … degraded.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This!’ She laughs at the reaction in my face. ‘Oh, I like you well enough, Otto, and in other circumstances …’ A shivering sigh passes through her. ‘It’s just so unfair, being a brood-cow.’

  ‘But …’

  Only I don’t know why she’s raised this right now. It’s how it is. How it’s always been with us. The men go out and back, the women stay at home. That’s the German way of things. As for the Russians … well, the Russians are barbarians. They kill each other for fun, then resurrect themselves.

  I make to say something, but she interrupts. ‘You want to fuck me again, Otto? You know, I’d rather like a child of yours.’

  47

  Back in my own room I try to sleep, but it’s no good, there’s all eternity to sleep. So I go to Zarah and she gives me something to keep me awake for a couple of days, and then I visit Hecht. And so it is that, two hours after leaving Urte’s bed, I am standing on the platform once again, a knapsack on my shoulder, waiting to jump.

  I am going to see Frederick, to give him the snuff-box. I have to, otherwise none of it means a thing. Frederick dying would mean a big change, a major re-routing of the Tree, and I can’t allow that.

  As I step into his tent, Frederick looks up from his map table and smiles at me.

  ‘Ah, Otto, where have you been?’ Frederick has the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. They dominate his lined and careworn face and are – so I’ve come to learn – the absolute barometer of his mood. He is forty-seven years old, yet he looks a good ten to fifteen years older, an impression that his unkempt uniform does much to enhance. Yellow snuff stains cover his unwashed indigo blue coat – what, in his youth, he called his ‘Sterbekittel’, his ‘shroud’. Nowadays he never changes from it. Even at court he wears this patched and shabby uniform. Only on his mother’s birthday does he take it off and wear ‘mufti’.

  Still smiling, he beckons me across, then stabs a finger at the hand-drawn map.

  ‘Saltykov’s in Frankfurt, and Daun is marching north to meet him. I mean to cut them, Otto, and bring each one to battle separately.’

  Frederick is much smaller than me – five two to my six foot – yet he dominates the space surrounding him. Like Urte, I think, and wonder briefly what she’d make of this, for Frederick is our hero. As much as Frederick Barbarossa, he is Germany, though if you were to say that to him he would laugh, and curse the Saxons for pigs and dogs, and tell you what a barbarous language it was. No, Frederick speaks only French, as now.

  And so I answer him. ‘You think they will attempt to link their forces, then?’

  His eyes seek mine. ‘Assuredly. Saltykov is still licking his wounds from last year’s battle at Zorndorf. If what my spies say is true, the Empress Elizabeth would prefer him not to sustain a second bloody nose.’

  I nod, but we both know that it is only half the story, and that Frederick’s words, as ever, contain an element of bravado. Zorndorf was a terrible confrontation – as fierce as any in this bloodthirsty century – and both the Russians and the Prussians came away from it with a new respect for the ferocity of their opponents. Neither side, I know, wish to repeat the experience. Yet Frederick seems determined to force the issue.

  His flute stands in one corner, propped up against a music stand. Nearby is a small shelf of books: Tacitus, Horace, Sallust and Cornelius Nepos in French translations, Rousseau, Racine, Corneille, Crebillon and Voltaire in the original. Nothing German.

  This is a complex man, an icon of the Enlightenment, and a friend of that impish monkey Voltaire; a man whose private art collection includes works by Rubens and Watteau, Titian, Corregio and van Dyke. Yet he is also a king steeped in the blood of his own people, a man who has lost one hundred and twenty generals in battle, and who has been in the thick of ten of the most terrible battles of the century.

  An honourable and untrustworthy man, full of contradictions.

  ‘So how have you been?’ he asks, turning from the map.

  ‘Not too well,’ I say, sticking to the tale I have invented for myself here in this time and place. ‘My chest …’

  He nods sympathetically, for i
f Frederick understands one thing it is physical suffering. He is troubled by his teeth and has gout in both his feet. Moreover, the cold, damp weather bothers him and causes him arthritic pain in his hands and knees.

  ‘We are plagued, you and I, Otto.’

  ‘So we are. But there are spiritual compensations.’

  I remove the knapsack from my shoulder and open it up, then hand Frederick the first of my two gifts.

  He studies the leather-bound volume a moment, squinting at the binding, and then his eyes open wide with delight.

  ‘Fénelon! His Telemaque! My God, Otto, where did you get hold of this? When my father destroyed my library …’ He stops, lost for words, then reaches out and holds my arm affectionately. ‘Thank you, dear friend. This is indeed a valued gift.’

  ‘And this …’ I say, and hand him the tiny gold snuff-box.

  Frederick laughs. For that moment his smile and his eyes are as clear as a summer sky. ‘You know me too well, old friend. Why, this is beautiful. Is it Dutch?’

  ‘Russian,’ I say, and he laughs with delight.

  ‘Russian, eh? Then they can do more than just drink and fuck and fight?’

  ‘Oh, sometimes …’

  And we both roar with laughter and he claps his right arm about my shoulders, even as two uniformed men step through the flap into the tent. Frederick turns to them, still grinning.

  ‘Friedrich … Hans … come in …this is my old friend, Otto. Otto Behr.’

  Friedrich and Hans … I almost want to laugh, for these are none other than Seydlitz and Zieten who, since the deaths of Keith and Winterfeldt, have become Frederick’s chief advisors.

  Seydlitz, yes, but not that Seydlitz. This is his historical predecessor, the man who, almost single-handedly, won the day at Rossbach and was subsequently promoted to the highest rank by Frederick for his valour. Seydlitz is an elegant, attractive man. Zieten, by comparison, is an amiable thug, a man who would fight you for a wager, or even for the sheer hell of it. Both stare at me now, suspicion in their eyes. They have heard of me, for sure, but this is the first time we have met.

  ‘Is there news?’ Frederick asks, releasing me, a sudden sobriety changing his whole face, giving it that cynical, trouble-plagued expression that was so often noted by observers.

  And so they talk, discussing the latest news. Most of it is rumour and hearsay, dangerously inaccurate. Many of Frederick’s spies, I know for a fact, are double-agents, paid by the Austrians to provide him with false information. And as they lean over the map, I realise I could surprise all three by telling them exactly where Daun and his Austrians are right now, and what instructions he carries from his Empress. But that might lead them to think me a spy, and so I hold my tongue, knowing that this part of it is unimportant in the greater scheme.

  You might think me cold. By not saying what I know, Frederick will lose Kunersdorf and thousands of men will die who might otherwise have lived. Indeed, Kunersdorf would not happen at all – Frederick would intercept Saltykov’s Russians at Gorlitz, to the north and, despite the odds, beat him. But he would die there, taken by a party of Cossacks, who would cut his throat and strip him naked before leaving him on the battlefield.

  I know because I have seen it. I have stood on that terrible battlefield, the screams and shouts echoing in my ears, and watched as fate snatched away all hope, even in the hour of victory. We have tried to make that change, and each and every time it ends the same: the Prussians win, but Frederick dies. Each death the kind of death we can’t undo. Only by losing at Kunersdorf, by suffering the very extreme of adversity, can Frederick, and thus Prussia, survive.

  History is like that, sometimes. Things seem fated. There appears to be but a single path. Which is why the snuff-box that now rests in Frederick’s pocket is so important. Yet if it is fated, then you might ask why I go to such lengths to get it to him. If History wants it so, then surely History will provide.

  Not so. This is what we call the ‘fallacy of inaction theory’. I know that Frederick will live, that the musket-ball will strike the strengthened snuff-box. That is what happened, after all. But I also know that it happened only because I interceded, and I know that because our experts analysed the snuff-box and saw what it was made of.

  DNA. My DNA.

  Circles, I know, but one I must complete. Inaction is not an option.

  I am about to leave, to make my excuses and go, when Frederick turns and looks to me.

  ‘Otto, you know the Russians. What do you think is in Saltykov’s mind? Do you think he’ll try and march on Berlin?’

  This is awkward, for I know precisely what is on Saltykov’s mind. Not only that, but I have seen with my own eyes his mistress Elizabeth’s detailed instructions to him. She doesn’t trust the Austrians – not completely – and is worried in case Daun decides not to link up with her army, but stay where he is in Gorlitz, near the Elbe. Their alliance is one of mutual suspicion, and only a joint hatred of Prussia holds it together. What’s more, she is afraid – and rightly so – of extending her supply lines further than she has to. Last year’s retreat from Zorndorf proved more costly than the battle, and she is loathe to repeat the experience, hence Saltykov has been warned to be cautious.

  ‘He might,’ I say. Then, pushing him – for I know I must – I add, ‘Unless you prevent him.’

  Frederick beams, his blue eyes shining at me. ‘Exactly! And now that Finck is here, we should move at once. Word is that Loudon has crossed the Oder and joined Saltykov in Frankfurt. They have a combined force of seventy thousand to our fifty, but we’ll do what we did last time – ferry our troops across the Oder north of them and establish a bridgehead. From there we can outflank them …’

  Frederick stops, looking past me, even as the sound of the commotion reaches my ears. There are raised voices, threats and curses, and then a young captain – barely twenty if he’s a day – bursts into the tent and, sweeping off his hat, bows before Frederick.

  Frederick strides across, his face deeply lined with concern. ‘What is it, man?’

  The captain glances at me, then answers. ‘We have captured an intruder, your majesty. A friend of Herr Behr.’

  Frederick looks to me, but I am too shocked to respond. Hecht said nothing about sending anyone else in after me.

  ‘Otto?’

  I shrug. ‘I’m sorry, I—’ And then I gasp, as Gruber steps into the tent, his arms held securely by two soldiers.

  ‘Otto,’ he says, his eyes pleading with me. ‘Otto, you have to help me.’

  48

  I have them tie him to a pole, then have them leave me.

  Frederick was curious, naturally, but he has known me long enough to trust me, and so did not insist on being here for the interrogation. I have explained only that Gruber was captured and, so I thought, killed. But I say no more than that. How could I? After all, it was I who killed him. Or so I thought.

  I look at him now and sigh deeply. ‘Hans … what in Urd’s name happened?’

  He tries to look away, but his head is tightly bound and he can’t turn it. There is shame in his eyes. Understandably so, for I was his friend, his brother, and he betrayed me.

  ‘They’re after me,’ he says, his voice quiet against the noises from the camp outside. ‘They took him, and now they’re going to kill me.’

  ‘Took who?’

  ‘Adel.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I have a son, Otto. A little boy. Six he is. Just like me. He—’

  ‘And they took him, right? The Russians?’

  Gruber nods.

  So that was it. I can see it all at a glance. It’s like Hecht said. The Russians take blood hostages. Nothing else could have turned him.

  ‘Who was the mother?’

  ‘A Russian.’

  ‘You knew she was, when you slept with her?’

  ‘No. No, I … I fell in love, Otto. She—’

  But he doesn’t have to say. I know. I know all too well how it is.r />
  ‘So tell me. How did you get out? We blew that place sky-high.’ Gruber almost smiles. ‘So I saw. And it saved my life. I ran, you see. Tried to get away. And they came after me. They cornered me and were about to shoot me, and then the bunker blew. I knew it was you, Otto. You always were the smart one.’

  But I don’t want his compliments. I want to know what the Russians are up to. I’m about to ask another question when Gruber speaks again.

  ‘I knew they’d failed. Knew it as soon as I saw you following us.’

  ‘You saw?’

  He shrugs. ‘I thought I glimpsed you once. Through the trees.’

  ‘And the others, the two Russians, they didn’t know?’

  ‘Those two!’ Gruber almost spits his contempt out. ‘They were brothers. Alexi and Mikhail Kondrashov. Nemtsov hated them. They were the weak links, or so he claimed. Corrupt, lazy, and they drank. More than was good for them. Nemtsov wanted them dead, but Yastryeb overruled him.’

  ‘The argument – when Nemtsov killed them.’

  Gruber’s eyes meet mine for the first time, surprised. ‘You saw that?’ He looks away again. ‘Yes, well … it seems Nemtsov was right. If they’d not fucked up you’d have never known.’

  That’s true. If they’d been more alert they’d have known we were trailing them, and then, perhaps, we’d never have found the bunker, and they’d have won. And I’m surprised for once, because I thought Yastryeb was better than that.

  ‘So what now?’ Gruber asks, glancing at me, trying to gauge my mood.

  Again I sigh. This is hard. Much harder than the first time.

  ‘I can’t let you live, Hans. Hecht wouldn’t let me. You’d always be suspect. There’d always be the chance that you were still a “sleeper”, playing the long game. You talk of Yastryeb. Well, I don’t believe he’d make such an elementary mistake. He’s not such a fool.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. This has a … diversionary feel. I think Yastryeb is playing a deeper game.’

  Gruber is watching me. His blue eyes plead with me. ‘We were friends, Otto. You could let me go. No one would know.’