Time Patrol

by Poul Anderson

  A man stepped into his path, slanted spear, and cried, "Halt!"—then, peering through the moonlight: "Oh, you, my lord. Do you want a doss?"

  "No," Heidhin said. "Dawn's nigh, and I've a horse at the lodge to bear me home. First I would call on the lady."

  The guard stood unsure. "You'd not wake her, would you?"

  "I do not think she has slept," Heidhin said. Helpless, the man let him go by.

  He knocked on the door of the tower. A thrall girl woke and drew the bolt. Seeing him, she held a pine splinter to her clay lamp and used it to light a second, which he took. He climbed the ladder to the loft-room.

  As he awaited—they had known one another so long—Edh sat on her high stool, staring into the shadows cast by her own lamp. They wavered big and ill-formed among the beams, the chests, the pelts and hides, the things of witchcraft and the things brought along from her wanderings. In the chill she kept her cloak wrapped around her, the hood up; when she looked his way he saw her face nighted. "Hail," she said low. A wraith out of her lips glimmered in the dull light.

  Heidhin sat down on the floor, leaning back against the panel of the shut-bed. "You should rest," he said.

  "You knew I could not, this soon."

  He nodded. "Nevertheless, you should. You grind yourself thin."

  He thought he glimpsed a half smile. "I have been doing that for many years, and am still above ground."

  Heidhin shrugged. "Well, then, sleep when you can." It would be fitfully. "What have you been thinking of?"

  "Everything, of course," she said wearily. "What these victories mean. What we should do next."

  He sighed. "I thought so. But why? It is clear."

  The hood crinkled and uncrinkled, shadowful, as she took her head. "It is not. I understand you, Heidhin. A Roman host has fallen into our hands, and you believe we should do what warriors of old did, give everything to the gods. Cut throats, break weapons, smash wagons, cast all into a bog, that Tiw be slaked."

  "A mighty offering. It would quicken the blood in our men."

  "And enrage the Romans."

  Heidhin grinned. "I know the Romans better than you, my Edh." Did she wince? He hastened on: "I mean, I have dealt with them and theirs, I, a war chieftain. The goddess says little to you about such everyday things, does she? I say the Romans are not like our kind. They are coldly forethoughtful—"

  "Therefore you understand them well."

  "Men do call me cunning," he said, unabashed. "Then let us make use of my wits. I tell you a slaughter will rouse the tribes and bring new warriors to us, more than it will set the foe on vengeance." He donned gravity. "Also, the gods themselves will be glad. They will remember."

  "I have thought on this," she told him. "The word from Burhmund is that he means to spare their men—"

  Heidhin stiffened. "Ha," he said. "Thus. He, half Roman."

  "Only in knowing them still better than you. He deems a butchery unwise. It could well enrage them into bringing their full strength against us, whatever that costs them elsewhere in their realm." Edh raised a palm. "But wait. He also knows what the gods may want—what we here at home may think the gods want. He is sending a headman of theirs to me."

  Heidhin sat straight. "Well, that's something!"

  "Burhmund's word is that we may kill the man in the halidom if we must, but his rede is that we stay our hands. A hostage, to swap for something worth more—" She was still for a bit. "I have spent this while mutely calling on Niaerdh. Does she want yon blood or no? She has given me no sign. I believe that means no."

  "The Anses—"

  Seated above him, Edh said with sudden stiffness: "Let Woen and the rest grumble at Niaerdh, Nerha, if they like. I serve her. The captive shall live."

  He scowled at the floor and gnawed his lip.

  "You know I am foe to Rome, and why," she went on. "But this talk of bringing it down in wreck—more and more, as the war wears on, I come to see that as mere rant. It is not truly what the goddess bade me say, it is what I have told myself she wants me to say. I must needs utter it again tonight, or the gathering would have been bewildered and shaken. Yet can we really win anything but Roman withdrawal from these lands?"

  "Can we gain even that much if we forsake the gods?" he blurted.

  "Or is it your hopes of power and fame that we may have to forgo?" she snapped.

  He glared. "From none but you would I brook that."

  She left the stool. Her voice went soft. "Heidhin, old friend, I am sorry. I meant no hurt. We should never lie at odds, we twain."

  He rose too. "I did swear once . . . I would follow you."

  She took both his hands in hers. "And well you have. How very well." When she threw her head back to look at him, the hood fell off and he saw her face lamplit. Shadows filled the furrows in it and underlined the cheekbones but masked the gray in the brown tresses. "We've fared far together."

  "I did not swear I would blindly obey," he muttered. Nor had he done so. Sometimes he went dead against her wishes. Afterward he showed her he had been right.

  "Far and far," she whispered as though she had not heard. Hazel eyes sought the murk behind him. "Did we end here, east of the great river, because the years and miles had worn us out? We should have wandered on, maybe to the Batavi. Their land opens onto the sea."

  "The Bructeri made us wholly welcome. They did everything for you that you asked."

  "Oh, yes. I was thankful. I am. But someday—a single kingdom of all the tribes—and I shall again watch the star of Niaerdh shine above the sea."

  "No such kingdom can be unless first we bleed Rome dry."

  "Do not talk of that. Later we shall have to. Now let us remember gentle things."

  Sunrise reddened heaven when he bade her farewell. Dew sheened on the mud outside. Black above it, he passed the holy grove, bound for the lodge and his horse. Peace had been on her brow, she was ready for sleep, but his fingers drew taut around the hilt of his knife.

  4

  Castra Vetera, Old Camp, stood near the Rhine, about where Xanten in Germany did when Everard and Floris were born. But the whole of this land in this age was Germany—Germania, reaching across upper Europe from the North Sea to the Baltic, from the River Scheldt to the Vistula, and south to the Danube. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the German state would arise out of it in the course of almost two thousand years. Today it was wilderness broken here and there by cultivation, grazing, villages, steadings, held by tribes that came and went in war, migration, eternal turbulence.

  Westward, in what would be France, Belgium, Luxembourg, much of the Rhineland, the dwellers were Gauls, of Celtic language and Celtic ways. With a high culture and military capability, they had dominated the Germans with whom they were in contact—though the distinction was never absolute, and blurred in the border country—until Caesar conquered them. That was not so long ago, assimilation was not yet so far along, that memory of the old free days had died out of everyone.

  It had seemed the same would befall their rivals to the east; but when Augustus lost three legions in the Teutoburg Forest, he decided to draw the frontier of the Empire at the Rhine rather than the Elbe, and only a few German tribes stayed under Roman rule. For the outermost of these, such as the Batavi and Frisii, it was not actual occupation. Like native states in India of the British Raj, they were required to pay tribute and, in general, behave as the nearest proconsul directed. They furnished a good many auxiliary troops, originally volunteers, lately conscripts. It was they that first rose in revolt; then they got allies from among their kindred to the east, while southwest of them Gauls took fire.

  "Fire—I hear of a sibyl who prophesies that Rome itself shall burn," said Julius Classicus. "Tell me about her."

  Burhmund's bulk shifted uneasily in the saddle. "With words like that, she brought the Bructeri, Tencteri, and Chamavi to our cause," he acknowledged, with somewhat less enthusiasm than might have been expected. "Her fame has overleaped the riv
ers to lay hold on us." He glanced at Everard. "You must have heard of her too as you fared. Your trail would have crossed hers, and yon tribes have not forgotten. Warriors of theirs have been coming to us because they learned she was here, calling for war."

  "Certainly I heard," lied the Patrolman, "but I did not know what to make of those stories. Do tell more."

  The three sat mounted under a gray sky, in a bleak breeze, near the road from Old Camp. It was a military road, paved and arrow-straight, running south along the Rhine to Colonia Agrippinensis. The Roman legions had been here that many years. Now those remnants of them that had held this fortress through fall and winter moved under guard toward Novesium, which had yielded much more quickly.

  They were a sorry lot to behold, ragged, dirty, skeletally thin. Most shambled empty-eyed, making no attempt to form ranks. They were mainly Gauls, both regulars and auxiliaries, and it was to the Empire of Gaul that they had surrendered and pledged allegiance, according to the demands and cajolements of Classicus's spokesmen. Not that they could have stood off a determined attack, as they had done again and again early in the siege. The blockade had brought them down to eating grass and whatever cockroaches a man might catch.

  Their escort was nominal, a handful of fellow Gauls, well fed and smartly outfitted, soldiers themselves before they became followers of Classicus and his colleagues. More men kept watch over the ox-drawn wagons that lumbered behind, laden with spoils. Those were Germans, a few legionary veterans officering backwoodsmen armed with spears, axes, and long swords. It was plain to see that Claudius Civilis—Burhmund the Batavian—had limited faith in his Celtic associates.

  He frowned. He was a big man, blunt-featured, his left eye blind and milky from an infection in the past, the right coldly blue. Since disavowing Rome he had let his beard grow, brown shot with white, and had his hair, also unclipped, dyed red in barbarian wise. But ring mail rustled about his body, a Roman helmet shone on his head, and at his hip hung a legionary blade meant for stabbing, not hewing.

  "It would take the whole day to speak of Wael-Edh—Veleda," he said. "Nor am I sure it would be lucky. That's a strange goddess she serves."

  "Wael-Edh!" whispered in Everard's hearing. "Her proper name, then. Latin speakers would naturally change it a little—" The three men were using the language of the Romans, the one they had in common.

  Startled in his tension, Everard involuntarily glanced up. He saw only cloud cover. Above it, Janne Floris hovered on a timecycle. A woman could not very well have ridden into the rebel camp. Though he could have explained her presence away, the risk of trouble was idiotic to assume, on a mission dicey enough. Besides, she was most useful where she was. Her instruments pierced the deck, ranged widely, magnified or amplified when she desired. Through the electronics in his ornamental-looking headband, she saw and heard what he did, while bone conduction brought her words to him. Should he get into serious difficulties, she might be able to rescue him. That depended on whether she could do it without creating a sensation. No telling how these people would react—even the most sophisticated Roman believed in omens, if nothing else—and the object of the game was to preserve history. If necessary, you let your partner die.

  "Anyhow," Burhmund went on, obviously anxious to dismiss the subject, "her fierceness is lessening. Perhaps the goddess herself wants an end to the war. What gain in it, after we've won what we began it for?" His sigh gusted in to the wind. "I too, I've had my fill of strife."

  Classicus bit his lip. He was a short man, which may have fueled the ambition that blazed in him, though an aquiline countenance betokened the royal descent he claimed. In Roman service he had commanded the Treverian cavalry, and it was in the city of that Gallic tribe, Trier to be, that he and others first conspired to take advantage of the German uprising. "We have dominion to win," he snapped, "greatness, wealth, glory."

  "Well, I'm a man of peace myself," Everard said on impulse. If he could not stop what was to happen this day, he must at least, in so small and futile a way, protest it.

  He sensed skepticism in the looks upon him. He'd better fend it off. He, a pacifist? His persona was that of a Goth, come from lands that would one day be Poland, where his tribe still dwelt. Everard Amalaric's son was among its king's—its war chief's—numerous progeny, thus of a social standing that entitled him to speak freely to Burhmund. Born too late for any inheritance worth mentioning, he went into the amber trade, personally conducting the costly ware down to the Adriatic, which was where he acquired his accented Latin. Eventually he quit and struck off westward because he felt adventurous and had heard rumors of fortunes to be made in these parts. Also, he hinted, some trouble at home needed a few years to cool down.

  It was an unusual but not unbelievable story. A large and formidable man, who carried little worth robbing, might well travel by himself without ever being assaulted. Indeed, he would be welcome most places, a break in monotony, a bearer of news and tales and songs. Claudius Civilis had been glad to receive Everard when the wanderer arrived. Whether or not Everard had anything helpful to tell, he offered a bit of distraction from the long campaigning.

  But it was not believable that he had never fought, or that he lost any sleep after having cut a human being apart. Before he should be suspected as a spy, the Patrolman said fast, "Oh, I've had my share of battles, and single combats too. Whoever calls me coward will feed the ravens before nightfall." He paused. I've a notion I can appeal to something in Burhmund, make him open up to me a little. We need an idea of how he, the key man in all this, thinks, if we're to discover how it is that the time stream forks—and which is the right course, which the wrong one, for us and our world. "But I'm sensible. When you can do it, trade is better than war."

  "You will find rich commerce among us in future," Classicus declared. "The Empire of Gaul—" Pensively: "Why not? Bring the amber straight west, overland as well as by sea. . . . I will think about that when I have time."

  "Hold," Burhmund interrupted. "I've a task." He put heels to horse and trotted off.

  Classicus's regard followed him warily. The Batavian rode to the line of surrendered troops. The tail of the sad procession was just passing by. He drew alongside a man, almost the only one, who walked erect and proudly. Ignoring practicality, the man had wrapped a toga, clean and pipe-clayed, around his starveling frame. Burhmund leaned over and spoke to him.

  "What's gotten into his head?" Classicus muttered. Immediately he turned his own and glowered at Everard. He must have remembered the newcomer would overhear. Friction between allies should not be displayed to outsiders.

  I've got to divert him, or he may well order me begone, the Patrolman considered. Aloud: "The Empire of Gaul, did you say? Do you mean that part of the Roman Empire?"

  He foreknew the answer. "It is the independent nation of all the Gallic peoples. I have proclaimed it. I am its emperor."

  Everard acted duly impressed. "I beg your pardon, sir! I hadn't heard, being so lately arrived."

  Classicus smiled sardonically. There was more to him than vainglory. "The empire itself is very lately founded. It will be a while before I reign from a throne instead of a saddle."

  Everard drew him out. That was easy. Uncouth and uninfluential, this Goth was nevertheless somebody to talk to and, after all, an impressive figure of a man, who had seen a lot, whose interest therefore held a subtly unique flattery.

  Classicus's dream was fascinating in detail, and by no means insane. He would detach Gaul from Rome. That would cut off Britain. Thinly garrisoned, its natives restive and resentful, the island should presently fall to him. Everard knew Classicus grossly underestimated Roman strength and determination. It was a natural mistake. He could not tell that the civil wars were over and Vespasian would henceforward rule competently, unchallenged.

  "But we require allies," he admitted. "Civilis shows signs of wavering—" He clipped his mouth shut, again realizing he had said too much. "What are your intentions, Everard?" he demanded.

&
nbsp; "I am only rambling around, sir," the Patrolman assured him. Get the tone right, neither humble nor arrogant. "You honor me by sharing your plans. The trade prospects—"

  Classicus made a dismissive gesture and looked away. Hardness settled on his face. He's thinking, he's reaching a decision that he may have been brooding on. I can guess what. Chill went along Everard's backbone.

  Burhmund had completed his brief discussion with the Roman. He issued an order to a guard, who accompanied the prisoner from the train toward the crude wattle-and-daub shelters the Germans had made for themselves during the siege. Meanwhile Burhmund rode over to a score of bully boys who sat mounted ten or fifteen yards off, his household troops. He addressed the smallest and slenderest of them. The lad nodded obedience and hurried toward the abandoned encampment himself, overtaking the Roman and escort. Some Germans were there yet, to keep an eye on the civilians left in the fortress. They had extra horses, supplies, and equipment he could claim.

  Burhmund returned to his companions. "What was that about?" Classicus asked sharply.

  "A legate of theirs, as I thought he must be," Burhmund said. "I had resolved I would send one such to Veleda. Guthlaf goes ahead, my fastest rider, to let her know."

  "Why?"

  "I have heard grumbles among my men. I know folk at home feel the same. We have had our victories, but we have suffered our defeats as well, and the war drags on. At Ascibergium—I will be honest—we lost the flower of our army, and I suffered injuries that kept me days disabled. Fresh soldiers have been reaching the enemy. Men say it's high time we gave the gods a blood-feast, and here is this herd of foes dropped into our hands. We should slay them, wreck their gear, offer everything to the gods. Then we shall overcome."

  Everard heard a gasp from high above.