Time Patrol

by Poul Anderson

  When the time was ripe, he took a ship and warriors across the channel. Not to stir up the mainland Geats, he fared north well beyond them and fell on a Skridhfennian camp. Of the captives he brought back, he slaughtered the choicest one in Niaerdh's grove. The rest he sold in Kaupavik. Otherwise Hlavagast did not go warlike abroad, for he was a mild and thoughtful man.

  Maybe because of her beginnings, maybe because she had only brothers, Edh grew up a quiet, withdrawn child. She had friends among the others in the thorp, but none close, and when they played together she was always at the rim of it. She was quick to learn her tasks and carried them out faithfully, but was best at those, such as weaving, that she could do by herself. She seldom chattered or giggled.

  Yet when she spoke freely, girls listened. After a while boys did, and sometimes the full-grown: for she could make stories. These became more wonderful as the years passed, and she began to put verses into them, almost like a skald. They were of wide-faring men, lovely maidens, wizards, witches, talking animals, merfolk, lands beyond the sea where anything could happen. Ofttimes Niaerdh came into them, a counselor or rescuer. At first Hlavagast feared the goddess might wax wroth; but no ill smote, so he did not forbid it. After all, his daughter had a certain tie to her.

  In the thorp Edh was never alone. Nobody ever was. Houses crowded against the wall. In each, stalls for cows or the horses that a few men owned ran along one side, bedsteads along the other. A stone-weighted loom stood near the door for light to weave and sew by, a bench and table at the far end, a clay hearth in the middle. Food and housewares hung from the roof beams or lay across them. The buildings opened on a yard where pigs, sheep, fowl, and gaunt dogs wandered loose around a well. Life crammed together, talking, laughing, singing, weeping, lowing, neighing, grunting, bleating, cackling, barking. Hoofs thumped, wagon wheels creaked, hammer clashed on anvil. Lying in the dark between straw and sheepskin, among the warm smells of animals, dung, hay, embers, you could hear a baby cry till Mother gave it suck, or she and Father thrash about for a while gasping and groaning, or from outside a howl at the moon, a rush of rain, the wind sough or whine or roar—and that other noise, somewhere, what was it, a night-raven, a troll, a dead man out of his howe?

  There was much for a little girl to watch whenever she was free, comings and goings, breeding and bearing, hard work and hard frolic, skilled hands shaping wood, bone, leather, metal, stone, the holy days when folk offered to the gods and feasted. . . . When you grew bigger they took you with them and you saw the car of Niaerdh go by, covered that none might behold her; you wore an evergreen garland and strewed last year's flowers in her path and sang to her in your thin voice, it was joy and renewal but also awe and an unspoken underlying fear. . . .

  Edh grew onward. Bit by bit she got new tasks that took her farther and farther off. She gathered dry twigs for kindling, woad and madder for dyes, berries and blossoms in season. Later she went in a band to the woods for nuts and to the strand beyond for shells. Later yet, first with a gleaning basket, a year or two after with a sickle, she helped harvest the fields to the south. Boys herded the livestock, but often girls brought them food and might well linger most of a long, long summer's day. Outside the brief busy times of year, folk seldom had anything to hurry for. Neither did they fear anything but sickness, baneful witchcraft, night-beings, and the anger of the gods. No bears or wolves prowled the Eyn, and no foes had sought this poor part of it within living memory.

  Thus, more and more as she changed from child to maiden, Edh could stray off by herself, over the heath till her moodiness blew from her. Commonly she ended by the sea, and there she might well sit, lost in the sight, until shadows and a breeze plucked at her sleeve to say she had better go home. From the limestone heights on the western shore she looked across to the mainland, dim with distance; from the sandy east she saw only water. It was enough. In every weather it was enough. Waves danced bluer than heaven, snow streaks of foam on their shoulders, snowstorms of gulls above. They ran heavy, green and gray, their manes flew in the wind, their galloping beat through the ground into her bones. They surged, battered, bellowed, embittered the air with spindrift. They laid a molten road toward her from a low sun, they dimpled beneath oncoming rain and gave it back its rushing noise, they cloaked themselves in fog and whispered unseen of things unknown. Niaerdh was in them with dread and blessing. Hers were the kelp and upcast amber, hers the fish, fowl, seals, great whales, and ships. Hers was the quickening in the land when she came ashore to her Frae, for her sea embraced it, warded it, mourned for its winter death and called it back to life in spring. Very small amidst these things, hers was the child she had kept in this world.

  So Edh grew toward womanhood, a tall, shy, slightly awkward girl with a gift for words when she chose to speak of things other than the everyday. She wondered much about them, and spent much time in a waking dream, and when alone might suddenly break into tears, not knowing quite why. Nobody shunned her, but nobody sought her out either, for she had stopped sharing the tales she made and there was otherwise something a little odd about Hlavagast's daughter. This was the more true after her mother died and he took a new wife. They two did not get along well. Folk muttered that Edh sat too often by Godhahild's grave.

  Then one day a youth of the thorp saw her walk by. Wind blew hard over the heath and her loose brown hair tossed full of sunlight. He, who had never hung back, found that his throat froze tight and the heart fluttered in his breast. A long time passed before he could utter a word to her. She lowered her eyes and he barely heard how she answered. After a while, though, they learned to feel easier.

  This was Heidhin Viduhada's son. He was a lean, dark lad, short on merriment but sharp of wits, tough and lithe, good at weapon-play, a leader among his fellows albeit some of them hated him for his toploftiness. None cared to tease him about Edh.

  When they saw how it was going, Hlavagast and Viduhada went aside for a talk. They agreed that such a linking of their families would be welcome, but a betrothal should wait. Edh's courses had begun just last year; the youngsters might fall out, and an unhappy marriage meant trouble for everybody; abide and see, and meanwhile drink a stoup of ale to the hope of a glad outcome.

  Winter passed, rain, snow, cavernous darknesses, the night of fear before the sun turned back and the day of feast that followed, lightening skies, thaw, newborn lambs, budding boughs. Spring brought leaves and northbound wings; Niaerdh rode about the land; men and women coupled in the fields where they would plow and sow. The Sun Car rolled ever higher and slower, green swelled, thunderstorms flashed and banged above the heath, rainbows glimmered far out at sea.

  Time came for the market at Kaupavik. Alvaring men gathered their wares and busked themselves. Word thrilled from homestead to homestead: this year a ship had arrived from beyond the Anglii and Cimbri, from realms of the very Romans.

  No one knew much about Romaburh. It lay somewhere remote in the South. But its warriors were like locusts, they had eaten land after land; and finely made things trickled out of those realms, glass and silver vessels, metal discs bearing faces, unbelievably lifelike little figures. The stream must be strengthening, for more such goods reached the Eyn every year. Now, at last, Roman chapmen had themselves made it to the country of the Geats! Those who stayed behind in Laikian watched with envy those who left.

  Having scant work to do just then, they took comfort in idleness. No sign of evil marked that day a sennight later when Edh and Heidhin strolled west to the shore.

  Huge reached the heath, man-empty once they left the thorp out of sight, treeless and flat, so that most of the world was sky. Dizzyingly tall the clouds loomed, dazzlingly white, in a blue without bounds. Light and heat fell from the sun like rain. Poppies flared red, gorse yellow, amidst the murky ling. When they sat down for a while they caught a scorched smell of spurrey; bees hummed in a silence through which larksong drifted earthward; then wings racketed, a grouse hastened low overhead, they looked into one another's eyes and
laughed aloud at their own astonishment. Walking, they held hands, no more, for theirs was a chaste folk and he felt himself the warder of a fragile sacredness.

  Their path skirted the bluffs that stretched north from the farms and brought them through woods to a strand. Starred with wildflowers, grass grew nearly to the water's edge. Wavelets chuckled on stones they had long since worn smooth. Farther out they gleamed and glinted. Across the channel, the mainland shadowed the horizon. Closer, cormorants on a rock dried their wings in the breeze. A stork flew by, white bearer of luck and growth.

  Heidhin caught his breath. His finger leaped to point. "Look!" he cried.

  Edh squinted north against the brightness. Her voice wavered. "What is it?"

  "A ship," he said, "bound this way. A big, big ship."

  "No, it can't be. That thing above it—"

  "I've heard about such. Men who've been abroad have sometimes seen them. They catch the wind and push the hull along. Yon's the Roman ship, Edh, it has to be, headed home from Kaupavik, and we came right in time to behold!"

  Rapt, they stared, forgetting all else. The vessel glided nigh. Indeed she was a wonder. Black with gold trim, she was no longer than a large Northern craft, but much wider, round-bellied to hold an untellable freight of treasures. She was decked over, men standing high above the hold. They seemed a swarm, plenty to fight off any rovers. The stempost curved grandly up and aft, while the carving of a giant swan's neck lifted at the stern. Between them rested a wooden house. No oars drove this ship. From a great pole with a crosspiece swelled a cloth as broad as the beam. She moved along noiseless, a wave at her bow and wake aswirl behind the double steering blades.

  "Surely they are beloved of Niaerdh," Edh breathed.

  "Now I can see how they clutch half the world," Heidhin said shakenly. "What can withstand them?"

  The ship changed course, nearer to the island. Youth and maiden saw crewmen peer their way. A hail rang faintly in their ears. "Why, I, I do think it's us they look at," Edh stammered. "What could they want?"

  "Maybe . . . they would like me to join them," Heidhin said. "I've heard from travelers to western parts that the Romans will take tribesmen into their war-hosts. If those are shorthanded because of sickness or something—"

  Edh cast him a stricken glance. "Would you go with them?"

  "No, never!" Her fingers closed tight around his. He squeezed back. "But let's hear them out anyway, if they do land. They may want something else, and pay us well for our help." A pulse throbbed in his throat.

  The yard rattled down. What must be an anchor, though it was not a stone but a hook, went out at the end of a line. A boat trailed on another line. Sailors hauled it alongside and lowered a rope ladder. Men climbed down and seated themselves on the thwarts. Their mates handed them oars. One stood up and flapped a fine cloak he carried. "He smiles and beckons," said Heidhin. "Yes, they have a wish they hope we can grant."

  "How beautiful, that garment," Edh murmured. "I think Niaerdh wears the like when she visits the other gods."

  "Maybe ere sundown it will be yours."

  "Oh, I dare not ask."

  "Ho, there!" bawled a man in the boat. He was the biggest, fair-haired, doubtless a German-born interpreter. The rest were a mixed lot, some also light of hue, some darker than Heidhin. But of course the Romans had many different folk to draw on. All wore knee-length tunics over bare legs. Edh flushed and kept her gaze from the ship, where most went naked.

  "Be not afraid," the German called. "We'd fain deal with you."

  Heidhin reddened too. "An Alvaring knows no fear," he shouted. As his voice cracked he grew redder yet.

  The Romans rowed in. The two ashore waited, blood loud in their heads. The boat grounded. A man jumped forth and made fast. The one with the cloak led them up the strand. He smiled and smiled.

  Heidhin clasped hard his spear. "Edh," he said, "I like not the look of them. I think we'd be wisest if we kept out of reach—"

  He was too late. The leader yelled an order. His followers dashed forward. Before Heidhin could raise his weapon, new hands grabbed it. A man stepped behind him and caught his arms in a wrestler's lock. He struggled, screeching. A short stick, to which he had paid no heed—the gang was unarmed save for knives—struck his nape. That was a skillful blow, to stun without real harm. He sagged, and they bound him.

  Edh had whirled to run. A sailor caught her hair. Two more closed in. They flung her down on the grass. She screamed and kicked. Another pair grabbed her ankles. The leader knelt between her spraddled legs. He grinned. Spit ran from a corner of his mouth. He hiked up her skirt.

  "You trolls, you dog turds, I'll kill you," Heidhin raged weakly, out of the pain that stabbed through his skull. "I swear by every god of war, no peace shall your breed ever have with me. Your Romaburh shall burn—" Nobody listened. Where Edh lay pinned, the thing went on and on.

  14

  A.D. 43.

  Tracing Vagnio's voyage back to his departure from Öland was easy. With skill and persistence, it was possible to find that a boy and a girl had walked to his home from a village about twenty miles south. But what happened earlier? Some cautious inquiries on the ground were in order. First, though, Everard and Floris planned an aerial survey over the previous several months. The more clues they collected in advance, the better. Vagnio would not necessarily hear of an event such as a murder; perhaps the family could hush it up. Or he and his men might keep silent about it before a stranger. Or Everard might simply get no chance to ask before circumstances forced him from the camp on the beach.

  Leaving behind their van and horses, the agents flitted off together on separate hoppers. Their search pattern was a set of leaps from point to point of a precalculated space-time grid. If they spied anything unusual, they would take as close a look through as long a duration as needful. The procedure wasn't guaranteed to pay off, but it was better than nothing and they didn't have infinite lifespan to spend here.

  A mile above the village, they flashed from midsummer balefires to a couple of weeks later and hung in an enormous blue. Wind whittered thin and cold. The view wheeled over a sunlit Baltic Sea, Sweden's hills and forests to the west, Öland a straitness mottled with heather, grass, woods, rock, sand—names no dweller would speak for unchronicled centuries to come.

  Everard swept his scanner around. Abruptly he stiffened. "Yonder!" he exclaimed into the transmitter at his neck. "About seven o'clock—see?"

  Floris whistled. "Yes. A Roman ship, is it not, anchored offshore?" Thoughtfully: "Gallo-Roman, most likely, out of some such port as Bordeaux or Boulogne, rather than the Mediterranean. They never had a regular trade directly with Scandinavia, you know, but records mention a few official visits, and occasional entrepreneurs sail to Denmark and beyond, bypassing the long chain of middlemen. Amber, especially."

  "This might be significant for us. Let's check." Everard increased magnification.

  Floris had already done it. She screamed.

  "Oh, my God," Everard choked.

  Floris swooped downward. Cloven air boomed behind her.

  "Stop, you fool!" Everard yelled. "Come back!"

  Floris ignored him, her popping ears, everything but that which was ahead of her dive. Still her shriek trailed after. So might a plunging hawk scream, or a wrathful Valkyrie. Everard struck fist on control console, cursed, and grimly, all but helplessly, trailed at a slower pace. He halted a few hundred feet aloft, keeping the sun at his back.

  The men, clustered to watch the show or wait their turns, heard. They looked up and saw the death-horse bound for them. They wailed and scrambled in every direction. The one on the girl pulled from her, got to his knees, yanked out his knife. Maybe he meant to kill her, maybe it was only defensive reflex. No matter. A sapphire-blue energy bolt smote him through the mouth. He crumpled at her feet. From a hole in the back of his skull curled the smoke off his brain.

  Floris whipped her cycle about. A man's height above ground, she fired at the next nearest.
Gut-shot, he yammered and threshed on the grass, to Everard like an overturned beetle. Floris chased a third and dropped him cleanly. She ceased then, motionless in the saddle for a minute. Sweat mingled with tears on her face, as cold as her hands.

  Breath shuddered into her. She holstered her pistol and leaf-gentle descended by Edh.

  Done is done, tolled through Everard. Swiftly he considered his options. In blind panic, surviving sailors spurted along the shore or toward the woods. Two had kept some wits, had waded out and were swimming for the ship, where horror boiled. The Patrolman bit his lip till blood ran. "Okay," he said aloud, tonelessly. With jumps around space and precise aim, he killed each of those who had landed. Finally he put the wounded man out of his misery. I don't suppose Janne left him on purpose. She just forgot. Everard rode back to a fifty-foot altitude and poised. By scanner and amplifier he observed what went on below him.

  Edh sat up. Her stare was blank, but she plucked at her skirt and got it down over the red-streaked thighs. Hog-tied, Heidhin writhed toward her. "Edh, Edh," he groaned. He stopped when the timecycle settled between. "Oh, goddess, avenger—"

  Floris dismounted and knelt beside Edh. She laid her arms about the girl. "It is over, dear," she sobbed. "It will be well with you. Nothing like this, ever again. You are free now."

  "Niaerdh," she heard. "All-Mother, you came."

  "No use denying your divinity," Everard snarled in Floris's receiver. "Get the hell out before you make matters worse."

  "No," the woman answered. "You don't understand. I have to give her what little comfort I am able."

  Everard sat mute. The crewmen in the channel heaved frantic on halyard and anchor rode. "Loose me," Heidhin pleaded. "Let me to her."