The Crosstime Engineer

by Leo Frankowski

  “What are they afraid of ?”

  “Bandits. Wolves. Mostly other knights.”

  “Why doesn’t the government do something?”

  “The government?” He spat. “Poland doesn’t have a government! Poland has a dozen petty dukes who spend their time arguing with each other instead of defending the country. Poland is a land without a king!”

  “The last king of Poland died a hundred years ago, and he divided the country up among his five sons just so they’d each have their own little duchy to play with! And each of them divided it up still further, being nice to their children.”

  “Did any of them think about the land? No! They treated the country like it was a dead man’s bag of gold to be divided up among the heirs.”

  “You paint too bleak a picture, master boatman,” Father Ignacy said. “There is a strong movement afoot to unify the country. Henryk the Bearded now holds all of Silesia, along with western Pomerania, half of Great Poland, and most of Little Poland. He has the throne at Cracow, and mark my words, his son, young Henryk, will be our next king. I can smell it.”

  “You think Henryk’s line can be kings? Does the Beard act like a king? When Conrad of Mazovia asked for aid against the Prussian raiders, did Henryk come to his aid? No! Henryk was too busy playing politics to help out another Polish duke, so Duke Conrad went and invited those damned Knights of the Cross in. They've taken as much Polish territory as they have Prussian! It was like inviting in the wolves to get rid of the foxes!”

  “But politics is an essential part of unifying the country, Tadaos. At least the Polish dukes have never made war on one another the way they do in England or Italy or France.”

  “No, they prefer ambushes, poison, and an occasional knifing. There’ll be war with those Knights of the Cross, you mark my words on that!”

  There was no arguing with that statement, so the conversation died for a while.

  After supper that night, I was sitting with Father Ignacy apart from the others. “You know, Father, it was the inn. It had to be the inn.”

  “What was what inn, my son?”

  “The Red Gate Inn, on the trail near Zakopane. I must have come back in time when I slept in the inn. Those double steel doors on the storeroom-I had to have been in some kind of time machine.”

  “Do they make time machines in the twentieth century?”

  “What? No. Of course not. But don’t you see? If they had a time machine, they could be from any century.”

  “And you think that your being here is the result of some mechanism rather than an act of God?”

  “Father, anything can be an act of God! God can do whatever He wants, but I have to deal with the world in the only way I know how, as an engineer. I think that I should turn back and go back to that inn. Maybe I can find the answer there.”

  “My son, in the first place, what you are speaking is very close to blasphemy. In the second, there is absolutely no possibility of your making it back up the Dunajec alive, not at this time of year. You could freeze to death before you were halfway there. I wouldn’t try it myself except on orders from the Pope, and then I would go knowing that I was a martyr.”

  “Still, I must try.”

  “You may believe in machines, my son, but I believe in God. I think that you are here for a reason, and I think that you must find out what it is.”

  “But-”

  “Then there is the fact that we have an agreement with the boatman to take his grain to Cracow. I’m not sure, but I think it likely that this boat of grain represents all of his worldly goods. If this boat gets frozen in, he is a ruined man.”

  We were silent for a while.

  “Father, if you are so concerned about the boatman, why don’t you worry about the kid? Tadaos is the sort who could survive almost anything. But from what Tadaos has said about Cracow, the poet isn't likely to live out the winter. ”

  “My son, there is a vast difference- between a reasonably honest workingman and a goliard poet. Don’t you know anything about them? They glory in sin and drunkenness and debauchery. They mock the Church and ridicule the social order.”

  “Oh, he’s just a lost kid. I think that if you'd give him a chance he'd turn out all right.”

  “Give him a chance? What do you mean?”

  “Give him a job! He’s fairly well educated. He's attended the University of Paris. He tells me that he's an artist as well as a poet. If you need copyists, he's a better choice than I am.”

  “You really think that I should let that into a monastery?”

  “I know you should.”

  “Know? Is this something that you’ve read in your histories?”

  “No, Father. Let’s say that I can smell it.”

  “Well, I’ll think on it. But I make no promises. There is, however, a promise I want you to make, my son. A promise of silence. You must tell no one-and I mean absolutely no one!-that you are a visitor from the future. I give you absolution to invent some plausible lie and to tell it to any who questions you.”

  “The truth of this matter must be decided by the Holy Church, and until such time as a decision is made, you will be silent.”

  “But why, Father?”

  “Why? Well, in the first place, because I am your confessor and I am telling you to. In the second, do you have any idea of what sort of controversy would be generated by your claims? Hundreds, maybe thousands of people would plague you, wanting to know their futures. Some lunatic would likely start claiming that you were a new messiah. Others would surely denounce you as a creature of the Devil and demand your execution. Do you really want to be at the center of that sort of thing?”

  “Good God! No, Father, of course not!”

  “Then you will make this vow?”

  “Uh, yes, Father. But what does the Church have to do with this?”

  “Why, everything! I must make a full and complete report on this matter to my superiors. I am fully confident that my report, with annotations by my superiors, will eventually reach the Vatican and the Pope himself. It is likely that he will appoint commissioners to look into the matter. They will report back, and a decision will eventually be made.”

  “Decision? On what?”

  “On what? Can’t you realize that you may be a direct instrument of God, sent by Him for some special purpose?”

  “I do not feel like a direct instrument of God.”

  “Your feelings have nothing to do with it.”

  “Hmph. Just how long will this decision-making process take?” I asked.

  “Maybe two years, maybe ten. But until it is completed, you will not discuss this. I want your vow of silence!”

  “What, exactly, do you want me to do?”

  “You will get on your knees, and you will repeat after me…”

  I did as he asked and made a lengthy, legalistic vow. Father Ignacy had apparently been thinking about it for some time. I am keeping that vow, but there was nothing in it that forbade me from writing a private diary, in a language that no one in the thirteenth century could possibly read.

  Just before I-fell asleep, I said, “Father Ignacy? What if the Church decides that I am not an instrument of God? What if it decides that I am an instrument of the Devil?”

  “In that unlikely event, my son, I would expect you, as a good Christian, to obey the dictates of the Church.”

  Getting to sleep that night was not easy.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, we began pulling the boat as soon as it was possible to see. The path along the banks of the Vistula was not good. It went up and over countless ridges, down and into hundreds of muddy rivulets. Every few hours we had to get into the boat and row it upstream past a creek or swamp that we couldn’t wade through.

  Still, pulling was easier than rowing, so we slogged along with ropes over our shoulders.

  Thinking about it, I didn’t see how mules could possibly have done the job that we did.

  “Well, in the summer the water’s hi
gher and most of the swamps are covered,” Tadaos explained.

  “But can’t you do something about improving this trail? A few thousand man-hours of work, some small wooden bridges, would cut our labor in half.”

  “There’s been some talk about a boatman's guild to get the landlords to do something in return for the tolls we have to pay, but nothing has come of it. Guilds can work in a city, where people are close to each other; but on the river, we're too spread out. Some men work short hauls, between two points. Some work long ones. Some, like me, pick up and deliver wherever they can get a contract or I make a good bargain. How could a guild work over the entire Vistula River, with all of its tributaries? I've been on this river for eight years, and I don't know half of the men who own boats.”

  “But can’t the government do something?”

  “Damn it! I’ve told you that there is no government!”

  I was quiet for a while. “What’s all this about tolls? I haven't seen you pay any tolls.”

  “You were asleep when they caught us at Wojnicz, back on the Dunajec. I would have tried to slip by at night, like we did at Sacz, but this time of year there’s so little traffic that they usually don't keep a guard boat out, and I was worried that if we wasted time, the river might freeze.”

  “Brzesko’s around the next bend, and we've got to walk by it. They'll catch us, sure.”

  Brzesko had tall masonry walls topped with two mailclad crossbowmen. It also had a pompous official, who haggled with our boatman for a quarter hour before they settled on a toll of twentyone pence.

  I’d never seen a functioning castle before. I wanted to explore, but Tadaos wouldn't stand for it.

  “It’s bad enough paying their tolls; we don't have to support their inn as well,” he said as we proceeded. “Damned bastards on the wall with their crossbows. If there were only one of them, I could have gotten three arrows into him before he got the silly thing cocked.”

  “You’d kill a man for twenty-one pence?” Father Ignacy asked.

  “No, Father. Just talking, and anyway, I have to come by here eight or ten times a year. If I killed them, I’d be caught for sure. Still and all, you've got to admit that it's a pleasant thought.”

  Soon it was my turn to ride on the boat, and I could relax and think.

  Languages all change, but they change at vastly different rates, and I think that English must be the most changeable of all.

  When I was first learning English, I was shocked to discover that an intelligent, educated, English-speaking person of the twentieth century was unable to read Chaucer in the original without taking special college courses. Think about it! A language changed to unintellegibility in six hundred years. No, less than that, because two hundred years later Shakespeare wrote his plays, and they are intelligible to the educated American.

  On the other hand, any decently educated twentiethcentury Spaniard can enjoy The Poem of the Cid without difficulty, and it was written in 1140.

  The Slavic languages are among the world’s most stable. The east and west Slavs-the Russians and the Poles-split off from each other around the middle of the first millennium. Yet, despite the fifteen hundred years of separate development, it is possible-by speaking slowly and listening carefully-for a Pole and a Russian to communicate.

  So, despite my trouble, things could have had been much worse. Had I been dumped into thirteenth-century England, I would not have been able to make myself understood. As it was, people thought that I had a funny accent, but I could get by.

  That night I was talking to Roman Makowski, the poet.

  “What do you plan to do once we get to Cracow?” I asked.

  “Plan? I have no plans other than to do what I have always donefollow the muse.”

  “But how is that going to keep you alive? Winter is coming on.”

  “Something will turn up. Who knows? Perhaps the keeper of a prosperous brothel will want seductive scenes painted on his walls for the encouragement of his patrons, and I shall be paid some of my fees in trade. The muse takes care of her own.”

  “The muse has not done well by you thus far.”

  “This must be admitted. Are you offering some suggestions?”

  “One. Father Ignacy is in need of copyists, and you are qualified for this work. If you were to impress him with your character and ask him politely, you might be offered a job.”

  “Father Ignacy is already impressed with my character, though not favorably. I might better ask a job of the Devil; at least there would be a chance of acceptance. Furthermore, the prospect of working all winter in a monastery is frightening. Consider-a whole season of sobriety! Months without touching a woman! An eternity of waking, up every three hours to pray! No, the Devil would make a better offer.”

  “Get serious, kid. A month from now you could be dead of cold or starvation! You’d best not ignore the only iron you have in the fire!”

  “The only iron in the fire! What an excellent phrase! May I borrow it?”

  “Yes, and stop changing the subject. Are you going to follow my suggestion?”

  “Sir Conrad, what exactly do you think I should do?”

  “To start with you should ask him to confess you, and after that you might try praying a little.”

  “Oh, very well. It certainly can’t hurt, and it might help. That artistic whoremaster could still turn up!”

  I shook my head. “Go to sleep, kid.”

  We got to Cracow so late the next day that we walked the last kilometer by torchlight.

  As we tied up to the dock, Tadaos said, “Well, lads, we made it. You can sleep on the boat tonight-at no charge-or there’s a passable inn up that street on your left.”

  “Thank you for the invitation, but I’ll never sleep on a grain sack again,” I said.

  “I share Sir Conrad’s feelings,” Father Ignacy said. “But first there's the question of our remuneration.”

  “But of course. I’d almost forgotten.” The boatman counted out fifteen pence each to the priest and me and six pence to the poet. I guess he hadn't bargained as well.

  Father Ignacy and I started off. I called back, “Tadaos, aren’t you coming?”

  “And leave my grain for the thieves? I shall sleep well enough here. You go, and come back in the spring if you need work!”

  “I just might do that.” The poet was staring at us wistftilly. “Come on, kid. I’ll buy you a beer.” He followed us like a puppy dog.

  The inn was sleazy, and the beer was sour. The food wasn’t good, and the service was surly. Nonetheless, it was the first roof over our heads in five days, and it felt good to sit on something that wasn't a grain sack.

  Food and lodging were a penny each, which didn’t seem bad until I discovered that we all had to share the same bed.

  I don’t know why it felt strange getting into bed with two other menfor the past five nights, we'd been snuggling together for warmth under my unzipped sleeping bag-but somehow it did.

  Three in the bed wouldn’t have been so bad, but we soon discovered that we had a few thousand uninvited guests. I spent half my time scratching fleas and the other half being shaken awake as my bunkmates scratched theirs.

  By midnight I’d had it with the little bastards. Tadaos's boat might be cold and lumpy, but at least it was free of vermin. My invitation was doubtless still good, so I crept out of bed, put on my pack, and felt my way down the dark hallway and out into the street.

  The street was as dark as the hallway of the inn. The night was cloudy, and there were no outdoor lights at all. I fumbled through my pack until I found the candle stub . I lit it with my cigarette lighter, redonned my pack, and headed for the river.

  Most of my attention was focused on keeping the candle lit while watching where I put my feet. The boats on the river were the darkest of shadows, and I couldn’t tell one from the other.

  “Tadaos!” I shouted, “where are you? Tadaos! Wake up !”

  “Eh? What? Damn!” his familiar voice yelled. I sudden
ly realized that there were four figures on his boat: Tadaos at the stem and three other men who were crawling toward him with naked daggers!

  “Look out!” I shouted, but the boatman was already fiercely swinging his steering oar down at the head of one of his assailants. A loud crack told of both oar and skull breaking.

  I was dumbfounded. If I put down the candle and aided Tadaos, we’d be fighting in the dark. The only thing I had approaching a decent weapon was my camp hatchet, but it was deep within my pack. I fumbled out my Buck knife and was worrying it open with one hand.

  Tadaos showed no such hesitation. As the first thief collapsed at his feet, he threw the broken stub of the oar into the face of the second. Even as the thief raised his hands to ward off the sharp broken wood, Tadaos had his belt knife out. He was on his man in an instant, and with a single, brutal upthrust he put his long knife under the thief’s ribs and into his heart.

  The third thief, seeing Tadaos’s deadly efficiency in front of him-and probably my size behind him-these were all very small peoplebroke and ran. He shoved past me before I had my jackknife open and ran for the cover of some trees.

  Faster than I would have believed possible, the boatman had his bow out and bent. As the thief ran past the first of the trees, Tadaos let fly. The arrow caught the man in the throat, knocking him off his feet and nailing him to the tree.

  All this had happened in a few seconds, in horrifying silence and to the dim flickering of a single candle.

  I shined the light into the boat. Tadaos was unbending his bow, obviously unhurt. The forehead of the first thief was caved in, a bloody notch centimeters wide and centimeters deep running from his nose to the top of his head, obviously a death wound.

  The second was on his back with a knife buried to the hilt in his solar plexus, the hilt pointing downward. His eyes were open, his features bore an expression of astonishment, and he wasn’t breathing.

  The last thief was struggling feebly at the tree. I finally got my jackknife open and went to him with some vague idea about cutting him down and administering first aid.