Don’t think about it, he told himself.
He continued to creep forward, only to lose his balance as the team veered violently to the right. Twisting, he managed to land halfway across the neck of one of the horses. The animal stumbled and slowed down, forcing the others to a confused trot.
“Now we’ve got him!” shouted someone.
Noel jumped onto the back of the leader. Settling himself astride horse and harness, Noel scooted close to the creature’s powerful, sweat-lathered neck, and gripped his reins close to the bridle.
Just as the guards managed to ride to the front, Noel swung the whip. “Go!” he shouted.
The team bolted forward once again, leaving the surprised guards behind. Noel heard furious shouts and the neighs of horses cruelly spurred. He leaned low, urging the team faster. The mane whipped in his face, and Noel squinted hard against the wind and dust.
The horses, aware that they had guidance again, steadied into a full gallop, although they were visibly tiring. Noel knew he couldn’t keep them at this breakneck pace much longer, but he didn’t intend to.
As soon as the ditch beside the road flattened out, Noel yanked hard on the reins and turned them off the road.
There was a mighty crashing behind, and for an instant Noel feared the carriage would turn over. He wished he had pulled the linking pin and released the traces, but it was too late for that now.
Down through the trees they plunged, the gentle slope and soft ground making the horses plunge and stumble.
“Stop them!” came the cry. “For God’s sake, he’s going to drown the king in the river. Stop them!”
Noel grinned to himself and cooed to his horse.
A shot went high over their heads. The horses shied and plunged aside, almost ramming themselves into a copse of trees. Noel yanked them around and cracked the whip, sending them toward the water.
The bank leveled out close to the river, and although there were trees along the edge, they were spaced far apart. Noel weaved in and out for a few minutes more, then saw an immense thicket ahead. Already the team was slowing of its own accord. The horses blew heavily.
This was all the chance he had left.
He glanced back, and saw that the guards were riding on the off side of the carriage, away from the edge of the river. Drawing up his legs, Noel swung himself off, hit the ground with his feet faster than he had expected, stumbled, and went tumbling head over heels.
He scrambled up, hearing a rider coming. A shot missed him by scant inches, and he went hurtling down the bank and dived into the water.
Shots hailed around him, zinging into the water angrily. Noel gulped in air and dived deep beneath the surface, letting the current carry him into the middle of the river.
He stayed under as long as he dared, then surfaced cautiously to gulp more air and dive again. He couldn’t see in the murky depths of the cold water, and the current was stronger than he expected. But right now that was fine. It was carrying him out of pistol range, and that was all he wanted.
Finally he made it to the opposite bank, a mile or more downstream from where he had escaped the king’s guards. Sodden and exhausted, Noel dragged himself out onto the grass and lay there, gasping for breath.
The cramps hit him, jolting pain down his left leg. He gritted his teeth against the agony, and all the while he was protesting in his mind.
He must be too far away from Leon. His strength was failing him again.
Leon…how he hated the idea of being dependent on his duplicate for anything, especially something as vital as his own health. Hunger sapped him, and even his wounded shoulder ached. Besides that, he felt bruised and sore everywhere.
When the cramp eased up, he struggled to his feet and wrung the water out of his clothes. He had kept his shoes, although swimming had been extra difficult. Now, with his linen shirt sticking to his skin, he shivered against the predawn wind.
Wind, he thought. That dry, late-summer wind that was to carry the sparks of fire across the city. He turned his face to the east, where the sky was fading from black to indigo to gray. The birds had started chirping sleepily in the trees. In the distance a cock crowed, and he heard the tinkling bell of someone’s cow. Dawn was coming.
He had to hurry.
Chapter 16
The early-morning sun was already warm and strong against a pearly pink sky by the time Noel came riding up Pudding Lane on a stolen cob. The horse was both lazy and iron mouthed. Noel had been beating the beast with a tree switch for the past mile, trying to urge it to something faster than a bone-jarring trot. Now he let it stumble to a halt, and he looked around at the peaceful scene.
The shops and houses were modest but well kept. Flowers bloomed in window boxes. A child’s wooden hoop had been left on a doorstep. Cats dozed on sunny ledges. The bustle and noise he’d encountered yesterday and the day before were absent now. Quiet lay everywhere, as though all the world were content.
Then, in the distance, he heard a church bell, and another, and another, ringing out the summons to worship across London town.
Not a soul was in sight except a woman in a clean apron and shawl, herding her brood of freshly scrubbed children to church.
“Good Sunday morn to ye, sir,” she said in a friendly way.
“Wait, ma’am,” said Noel. “The baker’s shop, where is it?”
She pointed with a smile. “Ye’ll get no bread on the Lord’s day, sir. Yesterday’s loaves is all sold out.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Noel. “Or are you the baker’s wife?”
“I am,” she said with pride, smoothing her apron. “Ye look a proper vagrant, sir, I must say. My husband is setting the new loaves to rise before he joins us at worship. He won’t sell you a bite, but perhaps he’ll give ye charity. Ye look proper done in.”
“Thanks.”
With a nod, she walked on.
Noel slid off the cob and limped to the shop. Bright with a green door and shutters, it seemed to have no other customers. Knocking, he looked around for some evidence of Leon, but saw no one. The street was utterly quiet save for the clucking of chickens behind someone’s house, and the stamp and tail swishing of his horse.
He found the shop door unlocked. Noel walked inside to an aroma redolent of yeast and cinnamon, a fragrance that almost made him swoon with hunger. He heard voices elsewhere, male and cheerful.
Noel almost called out, then he kept quiet. On impulse he glanced around and concealed himself behind the counter.
Footsteps came closer, and he heard a door open and shut.
“Well, now, my lord,” said a deep, warm voice. “I’ll say it again, although it’s plain as plain ye want no more thanks, but if ye hadn’t stopped by this day I’d have forgot to bank my fire proper, and no mistake.”
“Think nothing of it, my good man,” said Leon’s voice.
Noel, bent low to fit beneath the counter, heard that voice—his voice—and stiffened. He would never get used to it, no matter how often he encountered Leon. Bracing his hands on the floor to keep his balance as he crouched there, he pressed his palms hard against the wooden floor.
“Well, my lord,” said the baker, “they do preach on Sundays that haste makes waste. My wife don’t hold with me setting the loaves to rise on a Sunday nohow, but I have a large family and I want to get ahead. Still, forgetting my fire like that…it’s a mercy Your Lordship came by.”
“Let it be a lesson to you,” said Leon, “but don’t dwell on it. Go to worship and be easy in your mind.”
“Yes, my lord. Thank ye, my lord. Just step out and I’ll lock the door tight behind us.”
Noel listened to the creak of the front door opening. He held his breath, torn between grabbing Leon now or letting them leave so that he could start the fire. He had roughly a half hour left before recall would commence. There was no guarantee that Leon would linger. In fact, he was going out the door. Without him, Noel wasn’t sure recall would function. But if he betrayed his pres
ence, Leon would surely keep him from starting the fire.
With the greatest reluctance, he held himself in his hiding place, fighting the urge to jump up. No matter what the cost, he knew he had to save history first. If he failed to find Leon again, and thus trapped himself in the past, at least the time paradox principle would not be violated. That was his first duty.
But it was hard, just the same, to be noble and self-sacrificing when the one individual who could make him whole again was walking out the door.
“Where did this horse come from?” said Leon in an odd voice. “He wasn’t tied out here when I arrived.”
“A horse, my lord?” said the baker. “Yours?”
“Of course not mine. Would I ride a broken-down nag like that?” said Leon sharply. “Do you have customers on Sunday?”
“No, my lord,” said the baker in a pious tone. “Never.”
“I think you do today,” said Leon.
“As you can see, my lord, there are but the two of us standing here.”
“Just so. Well, good day.”
“Good day, my lord.”
Something snapped in Noel. He popped up from behind the counter. “Good morning, brother dear,” he called out brightly. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Leon whirled around in startlement. His narrow face paled, then an angry flush crept up from his lace collar and stained his cheeks. “You! But…but I killed you. I—”
He broke off, clenching his fists, his jaw knotted with frustration.
Although maintaining a wary eye on his twin, Noel plastered a big grin on his face and crossed his arms while the astonished baker looked from one of them to the other. “I may look like something the cat dragged in,” Noel said, “but I’m far from dead. As you can see.”
Leon scowled. “I’ll kill you again, so help me—”
“Not this time,” said Noel sharply. He drew out his pistol. It didn’t work, being both wet and empty of powder and shot, but Leon didn’t have to know that. “It’s countdown to recall. We’re going together.”
Leon flung up his hand. “There is no recall,” he said. “I’ve changed history, prevented the fire.”
“And I’m here to see that it starts,” said Noel.
“Er, what?” said the bewildered baker.
Leon shoved him aside. “Shut up. There’ll be no fire, I say. This is my town. I like it just the way it is.”
“It’s going to be better,” said Noel. “Right now it’s a stinking, pestilent hole.”
Leon’s smile was wolfish. His silver-gray eyes remained as cold as chips of ice. “Exactly where I belong, I think you’d say.”
“Not this time. I’m taking you back. I told you that at the start.”
“And I told you I wouldn’t go.”
Noel made a small gesture with the pistol and raised his brows. “Let’s go look at the hearth,” he said.
With a cry, Leon sprang at him. Noel was prepared for that, but he didn’t expect the baker to assist in the tackle. The two of them bore him to the floor. The baker threw himself bodily across Noel, despite his struggles to roll free, and pinned him while Leon wrested the pistol from his hand.
Pressing the muzzle against Noel’s cheek, Leon narrowed his eyes. There was no mercy in them. No hesitation. Only hatred and malice. Noel lay there helplessly. It was like gazing into a mirror and finding his reflection come to life.
I don’t want him back, thought Noel but at the same time he felt the need like an ache. He would never be complete and whole again unless he took Leon back into the time stream and reabsorbed him. A man was two parts—good and evil—and without the evil there was nothing for his good side to prevail against, nothing to improve on, nothing to hold him together.
“Leon,” he said softly.
Leon chuckled. “Are you begging me for mercy?” he mocked. “You, my sanctimonious hypocrite of a brother? How amusing you are.” His smile faded. “I thought I had taught you a lesson. It seems you need another.”
The baker reached out with alarm. “No, my lord!”
Ignoring him, Leon pressed the muzzle of the pistol hard into Noel’s cheek. The trigger clicked and clicked again. Noel lifted his gaze to Leon’s and smiled.
Leon drew back, examined the empty firing pan, and flung the weapon away with an oath. “Damn you! I’ll—”
Climbing to his feet, he turned away to seize a stout rolling pin from off the counter. Noel took the chance to shove the baker aside and scramble up. This time, he tackled Leon from behind, slamming him into the counter and wringing a grunt from him.
Leon twisted like a cat before Noel could catch his arms and swung the rolling pin like a club. Noel ducked and stayed at Leon’s back, managing to get a half-Nelson on him. Roaring curses, Leon kicked and struggled. Noel exerted pressure on the back of Leon’s neck, and his duplicate went abruptly still.
For a second there was only the sound of their panting.
Noel blinked the sweat from his eyes, felt Leon’s shoulders heave beneath his arms, and put more pressure on Leon’s neck. “I’ll break it if I have to.”
“Damn your eyes,” snarled Leon, trying to swing one of his fists back.
Noel caught it and pinned it between their bodies. “We’re going together this time. I’ll hold you like this for as long as it takes.”
“Gentlemen, please,” said the baker, hovering nearby and wringing his hands. “Can’t you settle this outside like—”
“Shut up,” said Noel and Leon in unison.
“Get him off me,” said Leon.
Noel looked into the man’s eyes. “You’d better leave.”
His tone and the purpose in his gaze made the baker turn pale.
“Please, sirs, my shop, my livelihood. I—”
“Go,” said Noel.
The baker scuttled out, moaning to himself, and left the shop door wide open.
“To the back,” said Noel, maneuvering Leon around. “March.”
Leon stiffened, but Noel tightened his hold and pushed his twin through a doorway into the rear of the shop. Small windows set very high provided the only illumination. A large brick oven and hearth dominated the small kitchen. It was very warm inside, and the air was hazy with flour dust. Across a long pine table, dozens of bread loaves sat plump and oiled. Flour still coated the kneading table. Huge wooden mixing bowls and paddle-shaped spoons were stacked to one side for later cleaning. A pair of flies buzzed lazily through the air.
Noel coughed. “This place needs some ventilation.”
“You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?”
Noel glanced down at the vulnerable spot between Leon’s shoulder blades. Holding Leon like this, he was aware of his twin’s taut wiry muscles, aware of the sweat trickling down the side of Leon’s face, aware of how alike physically they were, and how different. Inside, he could feel his stomach knotting with reluctance. He said nothing.
“You’re the moral one, the good one,” mocked Leon. “Do you think you can really torch this place?”
Noel closed his eyes. He knew what Leon was doing, but it didn’t help him to resist.
“Did you meet the baker’s wife and her four children?” continued Leon. “Good people. Kind, warmhearted, hardworking. Those attributes that you value so highly. They’re the very kind of people that you want the chip-dependent dreamers of your own time to be like.”
“Yes,” whispered Noel.
“So why punish these folks? Why deprive them of their livelihood, their home, all that they have?”
Noel bit his lip but he forced himself to answer. “You know why.”
Leon’s scornful laugh rang out. “Bosh! It’s a lie. It always is. Saving the future? What good is it? Did you ever stop to think while you’re so busy chasing after me that maybe a change would give us a better future?”
“You can’t know that,” said Noel. “It’s too risky.”
“Anything worthwhile is risky,” said Leon.
�
��You can’t tamper with lives, with time like that. You don’t know how it might come out. Besides—”
“There would be nothing to go home to,” finished Leon for him. “God, you make me sick. How can you defend that mess in the twenty-sixth century? What have they ever done for you, except rope you in with rules and stupidity? Have you ever stopped to think why you have to keep plunging into the past? Have you, Noel?”
“I believe in—”
“You believe in nothing except yourself!” said Leon. “You can’t stand the century you claim to love so much. Otherwise you’d stay. But you can’t stomach it, not really. You can’t wait to visit the past. It’s only here that you can be yourself. We can live, truly live in this primitive culture. We can feel. We can do whatever we dare. We can stretch and achieve. There’s hope here, Noel. There’s a future. But only here. If you take us back, you cut that off. You condemn us to nothing. It’s a waste, Noel. A waste of our talent, our abilities, our lives.”
Noel tried not to listen, but Leon’s words made sense. He knew only too well the problems of his own time. But he’d dedicated his life to seeking a solution to them through researching the past. He’d sworn an oath to the Institute. He’d been conditioned with an implant to keep him from going rogue and staying.
“Conditioning can be overcome,” said Leon softly. “Your oath means nothing.”
Startled, Noel realized that Leon was reading his mind. But how? Was it because Noel was holding him pinned? Was it because they were touching? He knew normally Leon drew energy from him. This time he had drawn energy from Leon. Perhaps…
“Let the fire stay out,” whispered Leon in a low, compelling voice. “Let history change. We’ll be rich men. I can make us rich, make us powerful. You could be like me if you tried.”
Restoration Page 19
