Endless Time

by Frances Burke

  She said, slowly, ‘Apart from Lord Liverpool and myself, very few people know that Antony has left England. His plans were betrayed by his enemies, and these “Englishmen” you speak of are the French assassins set on his trail.’ Desperation shook her voice. ‘They are only a few hours behind.’

  He said, pityingly, ‘I am nae sae green that I cann’a see the nose on my face. My grandson left for the place of meeting not an hour after I returned from my dinner. Your husband will be warned in time to take precautions.’

  The stresses of the past few days had begun to catch up with Karen. Her head started to swim, and she felt herself falling forward in her chair.

  MacGregor sprang to her assistance, calling for his wife and servants. Patting Karen’s hand, he assured her Antony knew very well how to take care of himself; she should not be overly concerned; he was skilled at disguising himself and sinking into the background. And so on and on, all the way upstairs to her freshly prepared bed chamber.

  Tucked up in bed with a hot bottle at her toes, she found she couldn’t sleep. She felt peculiar, at once tense and yet curiously deflated. After all her struggles, and with the end of the difficult journey in sight, suddenly the danger had ceased to be immediate. A sense of anti-climax hung over her. Now that it was no longer imperative for her to reach Antony, she’d fallen into a strange mood. In a startling reversal, she actually found it difficult to believe in plots and betrayals and important secret political meetings.

  She realized she was deathly tired. Too much had happened to her in little more than a year, and she was suffering from overload., Just when she’d managed to conform to her life in Regency London there had been the revelation of her previous existence as Jenny. That had taken some adjustment. Then she and Antony had fallen in love all over again, and begun to restructure their relationship. There’d been the trauma of weighing all her lives in the balance and, through necessity and desire, choosing the present, along with the guilt and pain of that choice. And finally, when she’d thought it was safe to relax, without warning that precious new life had been thrown into jeopardy, and Antony gone without even time to say goodbye.

  Hard on that abrupt severance came Amanda and her fearful revelations of danger. Karen, herself, under attack from her bitterest enemy, had barely escaped being killed; then immediately she’d thrown all her energies into the race for her husband’s life, while battling to contain her fears and stay alert for emergencies.

  Now it had all finished. The race was over and she had been dropped into this icy limbo, without purpose or direction. All her efforts seemed futile.

  The present and the immediate past started slipping away to the back of her mind, replaced by other, long buried memories. She let them come, welcoming them: people and places from another existence; Adele and Billie; the gallery; her little apartment in St. John’s Wood; brash and busy modern London itself. It shook her to find how real they were to her. The people and events of the past fourteen months had faded to a distant memory.

  Trying to focus on someone like Amanda, a close and dear friend, she saw her through a haze. Familiar features blurred and slipped away before she could grasp them. Even Antony’s image seemed to have retreated to a tiny figure at the wrong end of a telescope – beloved, but so far off.

  Frightened, she sat up in bed, deliberately allowing the down-filled coverlet to slip away, exposing her to the cold. This was the reality, this chilly room filled with strange shadow shapes – a round porcelain stove squatting in the corner like a crouched bear; the icily gleaming floor reflecting back moonlight from a world of snow outside the window. She wondered if her brain had been affected by the cold. She’d come all this way with a mission to perform, and until she held Antony safely in her arms she had not finished her job.

  She began to make plans. Should she stay here with the MacGregors until she had further word, or go on? Might she cause further problems by going on and perhaps arriving at an inopportune moment? Antony might wish to abandon the meeting, or persuade the others to move to a safer venue. She must keep in mind the importance of the meeting. Russia and Sweden had to combine against Napoleon. It would be Bernadotte’s experience in military strategy that would persuade Alexander to fall back before the French invaders next summer, thus luring them to their destruction. Had she impressed this on Antony? Certainly he understood the importance of a Swedish-Russian alliance to help Britain; but was he aware of its absolute necessity to keep the course of history true?

  She couldn’t bear to contemplate her more personal worry. Knowing Antony, he might decide to see his illustrious co-conspirators off to safety and wait to deal with the Frenchmen himself. What should she do for the best?

  Strained and exhausted, she finally fell asleep on the decision to continue her journey and see Antony for herself.

  She wakened to a world still in darkness and a commotion going on downstairs. Voices were raised, and she heard a woman scream. She put on her fur cloak and felt her way through the pitch black to the door. A lamp burned on a table in the corridor. She picked it up and hurried to the head of the stairs.

  Most of the family seemed to be gathered in the hall, their attention on a giant of a man whose clothes dripped melting snow on the polished floor. He had not waited to take off his coat in the vestibule – an essential airlock between the heated rooms and the bitter temperatures beyond the front door. Then she saw that MacGregor had his arms about his wife, and distress showed in every face.

  ‘What’s happened?’ But she knew. Disaster filled the air, dragging at her lungs, making her breathing labored as if she’d been running. With a trembling hand, she put down the lamp and descended the stairs, placing each foot as carefully as a woman in the last months of pregnancy.

  The dripping stranger looked up at her and said something in Swedish. MacGregor passed his weeping wife into the arms of her son and turned to Karen. His face was impassive, but she had the impression that he struggled for composure.

  ‘My grandson has been found in an alley, dead. His body bears the scars of torture upon in. We must assume he has told his attackers the place of your husband’s rendezvous… before he succumbed.’

  Karen found that he voice wouldn’t work. She fought to speak, anything to break the dreadful silence following the announcement. All she could think was that ‘they’ would stop at nothing. They had murdered a young boy, after putting him through hideous suffering. What might they do to Antony? MacGregor’s face made her want to cry. She wanted to say something to this grieving family, but only banal and useless phrases occurred to her.

  He looked away from her and spoke to the man who had brought the news. They exchanged a few sentences, the man’s eyes moving to Karen and studying her. Finally he gave a nod.

  ‘This man is named Erik Rike. He will take you to your husband. Pray God you will be in time.’

  *

  As the weak sun rose over Gothenburg’s rooftops, the Scotsman stood on his snow-covered doorstep and watched her leave. The little sled moved swiftly over the packed snow, although nothing could have been fast enough to suit her mood of quivering apprehension. For the first time in months she found herself longing for the convenience and speed of the internal combustion engine. The days were so short in these latitudes. At least it had stopped snowing, although the sky remained a sullen gray-white, like dirty washing. It would be possible to make good time.

  Once out of the city, scattered wooden huts and farmlets did little to change the monotony of the countryside. Occasional high stone ridges broke the skyline, and sometimes there were deep and narrow valleys, scarred with frozen streams. Karen looked in vain for villages. The country folk seemed to like to live in isolation. Even the mansions of the very rich seldom had more than one farm attached.

  Overnight stops in very basic inns were best not recalled. At least she’d been warm enough sleeping in beds fashioned like deep chests; and she’d no doubt grow accustomed to salt herring, in time. But these small things had
no importance, and were eclipsed by her desperate haste. A hollow feeling inside her warned that she was losing the race. For all their speed and the clement weather, they could not beat the light.

  Each afternoon as the sun began to decline she started to fret. All too soon they reached the final post house for the day, and she faced long hours of inactivity, chafed almost to bleeding point by her helplessness. She knew she had no hope of persuading her sled-driver to continue into the night – but she’d have braved its dangers if she could. Erik did speak a little English, although it seemed he’d rather not speak at all if he could help it. She tried only the once to cajole, then bribe him into breaking the immutable rule of daylight travel, and had been shamed by his contemptuous refusal. Just the set of his massive head and shoulders said as clearly as possible that she was an ignorant woman, out of her milieu and her depth.

  At least the weather still held. Gray skies had changed to a pale rinsed-out blue, bare of cloud; and the air was so clear, almost brittle to the touch. Every tiny detail of trees and rocks stood out with the clarity of a pen and ink drawing. Even preoccupied with her anxieties, Karen could not help being aware. Her artist’s eye noted and appreciated the pristine beauty of her surroundings, and comforted her a little.

  On the morning of the third day the weather changed. Under a dark and lowering sky, heavy with its burden of unshed snow, they set off for the next staging post. Where before the icy air had turned ears and nose-tips red and blue, then white, now there was a heaviness, almost a warmth, as big, lazy, feathery snowflakes came swirling down. The little horses did their best, floundering along while the snow fell thicker and faster and drifts grew deeper; but by early afternoon they were struggling and almost spent.

  Through the opaque curtain before her eyes Karen strained to see the roof of the staging post. She knew they had to reach shelter soon. In a world blanketed in silence, the sensory deprivation was amazing, she thought, emerging from under the mound of skins at Erik’s relieved shout. He pointed ahead with his whip, and urged the horses on until an almost buried fencepost appeared, marking their refuge. He climbed down from his seat and disappeared into the falling curtain of flakes, but soon came back again. He stood beside the sled, thigh deep in snow, a yeti or Big Foot, even to the ice-crusted beard and a voice that sounded more like a growl than human speech.

  ‘No further. Horses cannot.’

  ‘How far have we to go, Erik?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not far. But horses cannot.’

  Karen looked about, desperately. Apart from the wooden building in front of them there was nothing, absolutely nothing to be seen. They might have been in the frozen wastes of the Arctic tundra. The world had turned totally white and featureless, except for the treacherous caress of falling flakes on her upturned face.

  ‘The French – they’ll be stopped, also. Or, maybe not. Maybe they are already there, ahead of the snowfall.’ She spoke more to herself, trying to work something out.

  Erik’s grunting voice interrupted. ‘Tired horses in stable. Perhaps Frenchmen here. I go to look.’

  ‘No! They mustn’t see us.’

  He gently detached her clinging hands and turned away. ‘You stay. I go to look.’

  The waiting time stretched until she knew Erik, her only lifeline to Antony, was lying dead in the staging hut. The French had been suspicious and they’d killed him. When he loomed up out of the snow she could have hugged his huge frame.

  ‘Are they there?’

  He nodded. ‘They wait. Fire is good. They drink brandy, wait for snow to stop. We go.’

  This relatively long speech didn’t comfort her much.

  ‘But how? You said that the horses couldn’t go on.’

  ‘Horses stay here. They are stabled when we go.’ He then climbed into the sled and started digging under the covers along its length. He seemed to be unearthing two great lengths of paling, about fourteen feet long and a few inches wide. Only now did she realize that they had not been a part of the sled sticking out like shafts on either side of the horses. Erik dropped the timbers onto the snow. They he picked up something she did recognize, a pair of ski stocks.

  In a kind of appalled wonder, she said, ‘If those things are skis, I couldn’t possibly use them!’ She thought of her long skirts, the gigantic length of the skis – and the fact that she’d never been on a pair in her life.

  Erik looked at her stolidly. ‘I wear. I carry you on my back. See, here.’ He held up what looked like a huge satchel.

  Karen saw that she was meant to step into this and crouch like an Indian baby. Without a word, she got up, gathering her skirts around her, and climbed in. Erik tucked her hood about her head then threaded the flaps of the satchel closed until only her nose and eyes showed. She felt his muscles strain, and the grunting breath as he wriggled the straps onto his shoulders, and she gave thanks that her borrowed body was so slight, and the Swede so heavily built.

  She felt him bend, and assumed that he was fastening the skis. Then began the rhythmic rolling bump as he worked his leg muscles back and forth in the stride of the cross country skier. It must be killing labor, she thought. The weight of the skis alone would be hard. She wondered how he found his direction in the white waste around them, praying that he knew what he was doing. Her utter dependence frightened her. With so much at stake, she could do nothing but place her trust in others – an unusual situation for the independent Karen Courtney, but an increasingly common one for Caro Marchmont. It seemed as though she did nothing but face hard facts about herself and learn lessons in this new lifetime.

  She tried to shift her cramped position, worried that her legs might collapse when she needed them; but complaints were the last thing on her mind. They were so close to their destination. Would the Frenchmen stay long by their comfortable fire? She doubted it. Men who followed their calling, either from a sense of patriotism or for simple gain, would find a way to press on. Maybe they believed they had plenty of time to spare. But no, the poor murdered boy would have told them the time of the meeting, and the date.

  The more she considered this, the faster panic rose. Erik’s long steady strides could not satisfy her. If only she could get through the snow under her own power. If she could only use the gigantic Swedish skis. If she could just fly!

  Erik stopped. With frozen hands she made a bigger gap for her face and peered out. Snow whipped across her eyes, driven by a rising wind. Almost all the light had gone.

  ‘What is it? Why did you stop?’

  Erik turned a little so that she was facing at a ninety degree angle from the way they’d come. His arm was a signpost pointing down and back. She cupped her hands like binoculars about her eyes and peered until they watered.

  ‘I can’t see… Yes, I can! Something dark moving down there in the snow. But it can’t be the French. They had no skis…’

  She thought Erik couldn’t have heard her, but then his growling voice reached her over his shoulder. ‘Not skidor – skates. River goes to Lake Hielmare, Orebro. Frenchmen use river.’

  Karen drew in her breath, and choked on a mouthful of flakes. ‘Will they… Can they get there ahead of us?’

  He made a sound deep in his chest, and suddenly it burst out as a roar. ‘No! We will win!’

  They must have been poised on the brink of a valley. Without warning, Erik went into a crouch, dug in his stocks, and sent them crashing into an avalanche downhill. Karen knew the sensation of being trapped in a runaway elevator. The sheer breathlessness of the drop left no time for fear. All her insides seemed to rise up to the top of her chest, and the air was like a solid wall on either side of her, a tunnel of darkness tearing away into the distance as she and her steed bolted into oblivion.

  They couldn’t make it. It was nearly night, and there were trees and rocks. Any minute there’s be a disastrous collision, and they would both go hurtling to their deaths. Karen hung onto the edge of the satchel and compressed her lips so that her insides couldn’t escape. She wai
ted for the inevitable crash.

  It didn’t come. Miraculously, they began to slow as the land beneath them flowed into a gentler slope. And then, at the last possible moment, Erik’s left ski hit something hidden beneath the surface of the new snow. She heard the ski snap. Her involuntary scream cut off as she felt them rise up in a crazy cartwheel into the sky. They hung there for one long moment, snowflakes whirling about them in a mad dance, then crashed back to earth.

  Erik had landed on his face. Karen came down heavily on top of him, every bit of air knocked out of her. For a few seconds the wind dropped and snow sifted down like a layer of powder over her face. Quiet enveloped them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The room was dark and dank and smelled of disuse. Two braziers brought in to warm it made little enough impression on the cold, and added quite imaginatively to the grim aura of the place. Antony grinned to himself, picturing his companions’ consternation should an occupant of one of the coffins suddenly sit up and demand to know why he was being disturbed. He admitted he’d be a trifle surprised himself.

  Of course, the bell tower being used as a mortuary worked strongly in his favor. No one was likely to disturb the dead before tomorrow’s service and interment. The Swedish habit of building the wooden bell tower separate from the main body of the church meant even greater privacy. In fact, the only drawback was the difficulty in heating an unlined building.

  The smile left his face as he felt again that indefinable itch between the shoulder blades that usually warned of trouble. He felt uneasy. His journey to this desolate place had not been comfortable, but neither had it been dangerous. He’d taken all precautions against being followed, and he knew his companions, also, had been discreet. He had no reason to suppose that any ill-disposed person knew of their rendezvous. Yet, something was wrong.

  Sentries paced the entrances to the church a few yard away, making their rounds in utter darkness. The horses and sleds were hidden in a nearby barn, leaving no indication that the church was not completely empty. Since the holy day began on Saturday evening, the conspirators had timed their arrival to coincide with the short evening service, masquerading as members of the congregation coming late. After the bells had rung and the service begun, one by one they slipped into the tower, the two princes and their equerries and, lastly, Antony himself. It had all gone smoothly. Too smoothly, perhaps. He laughed at superstition; yet there was that warning itch telling him the meeting should end and all of them quickly disperse into the darkness.