A Midsummer Tempest (13 page)

The three departed from the chamber.

The man at the table, who had sat clutching a tankard
while he observed, brought it to his lips for a mighty draught. “Aah!” he said.
“Det gaar godt.”
He addressed the young woman opposite him with a slight lilt. “Who might those fellows be?”

“I don’t know.” Like him, she spoke an English never native to England, though with a different accent. “They look kind of Renaissance? Except I didn’t think people grew that big in those days. The dark one’s just about your size and build.”

Her companion was in truth huge. His face was good-looking if not extraordinary, save for a slightly dented nose; his yellow hair was cut short and he went beardless. He wore trousers and open-necked shirt of stout brown cloth, boots cobbled for rough use. “Well,” he said, “things may not be the same in their world. Thou, uh, actually, in my own time-line—I mean the one I started out from, this trip—giants did exist now and then, ’way back in the Middle Ages. Like King Harald Haardraade of Norway, who died in 1066 trying to conquer England one jump ahead of the Normans. He stood seven feet high.”

“Then no doubt the same was true in my history,” she answered. “They’re so similar, yours and mine, maybe identical till, m-m, didn’t we decide about 1900?”

“I tell you, I don’t belong where I came from.”

She patted his hand. “I know. Take it easy, Holger. I am trying to help you.” She was a winsome lass, tall, slender, features pert, eyes blue as the man’s. Ruddy-brown locks fell past her ears. Her garb was a feminine, green version of his. On the left breast shone a silver pin in the form of an owl.

“If we had more time!” he said. “What can I learn in a night?”

“Well, we don’t. I’ll simply have to cram what I can into that square head of yours, before Mister Boniface politely but firmly sends us on our separate ways.”

“Why
can one only spend a night per visit?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Anything more, and there might be too decisive an interaction. This is neutral ground.” The girl drew breath. “Suppose, oh, suppose I happened to meet Abe Lincoln here—I’m sure he’s eligible, whether or not he ever actually did find his way to a door—well,
given a lot of time together, I probably couldn’t resist warning him against Ford’s Theater. Lord knows what that might do to his world. Make a new continuum? I’m not sure if that’s possible. However, I am sure that nobody less than God has the wisdom for it. I suspect we’re bending the rules already, you and I.”

“You’re very kind,” he said.

“Nuts! I’m having fun.” She sipped from her glass of wine. “But look, when those two guys come back, I’ll want to talk with them. After all, I am on an exploratory project. So let’s get as much done as we can until then.” She stood up. He made to do the same. She gestured him off. “Stay put. I’m going to see if anything helpful is on the bookshelf over there.”

She crossed the room with a limber stride. Holger settled down to his beer. The woman in the armchair leaned forward. His glance crossed hers, and locked.

With sheer material, trim, jewelry and other accessories, she had turned what was supposed to be a decorous stola into something spectacular. The sumptuousness beneath her clothing made this irrelevant to any normal male. She ran fingers through midnight tresses and gave him a smoldering smile.

“Damn,” he lamented, “I wish I could talk to you.”

She crooned, to be heard only by him:
“Da mi basia mille.”

“Det var som Fanden!
I’ve forgotten practically all the Latin I ever had, except for church.” Slowly: “However, is language required?”

He half rose. His erstwhile partner saw, and called: “Hey, take it easy, lover boy. Sex and mathematics don’t mix. Or hadn’t you heard?”

“Oh, well, look here, Valeria, I’m simply trying to be polite—”

“Yah, I know that kind of politeness. And you told me you’re seeking your own true sweetheart. Do you or don’t you want some how-to instruction?”

“Sure.” Holger slumped. His sheepish glance at the other woman got a return both sullen and sultry. He fumbled for pipe and tobacco pouch.

Valeria ran her eyes over the books. They were as
various in titles as in size and binding. Her fingers stroked the celestial globe on the desk beside. The terrestrial sphere was equally detailed, marking in special colors places like Atlantis and Huy Braseal.

The landlord re-entered. Approaching Holger, he asked,
“Vil Herren ikke gerne ha’ et Krus til?”

“Jo, Tak,”
the big man said; then: “Why talk Danish? Yes, thanks, I would like more beer, Herr Kromand. I’ve never had better.”

“Quite a compliment from your nationality,” beamed the landlord. His English changed accent again as he raised his voice. “I say, pet, the gentleman ’ere needs another pint of the dark.”

“Coming right along, duck,” the barmaid answered. She pattered to fetch Holger’s tankard and fill it afresh.

“Would you care for a drink yourselves?” the Dane asked them both.

“Aow, thanks, sir, but I got me place to tend,” said the barmaid. “Might draw meself a mild-and-bitter, though.”

“And I’ve me own ’ostly duties,” the landlord added. “The poor lady over there ain’t got anybody else ’ere tonight what can talk with her. Besides, I think you’re busy. You come join us when you can, what?”

He sought the woman by the hearth, resumed his chair, lifted his goblet to hers, and proceeded in their conversation.

“Hey!” Valeria warbled. “Yippee! Here we are—So-kolnikoff,
Introduction to Paratemporal Mathematics.”
She took a closer look. “And, yeah, right beside it, the
Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics,
so I don’t even have to go upstairs for my copy.” She grabbed the two volumes, plus paper and pencils off the desk.

Back by Holger, she drew her chair close to his and sat down. “Now, look,” she told him, “I can’t teach you everything they’ve learned in my world. Anyhow, I don’t claim to understand more than the elements myself. And even our experts still have some pretty large areas of ignorance. But the theorems I do know let me cross from continuum to continuum, with a fair probability of landing in whichever one I want, or a reasonable
facsimile of it. I even deduced there had to be an interuniversal nexus. That’s how I found the Old Phoenix. You did it by accident, didn’t you?”

“Well,” he said defensively, “at least I have been traveling too.”

“Yah!” she gibed. “Using the spells from that superstition-riddled medieval grimoire you located—an unguided missal if ever I saw one. You could hunt through the time-lines till you died of old age, in its random style. Or no, not that long: till you met something too tough and smart and mean. Had several narrow squeaks already, haven’t you?” She tapped a book. “Okay. You did once take an engineering degree. You should appreciate a systematic treatment. You may get a glimmering of how to cast a transportation spell that has a better-than-chance likelihood of taking you where you want to go.” She sighed. “I hope, for openers, you’ve got the wit to grasp the fundamental ideas of the transcendental calculus, because that’s how we prove the theorems you’ll need, and without understanding, you can’t get any good out of them.”

Holger reached for the volume. “Please explain,” he said meekly. “You shouldn’t take all this trouble for a stranger.”

“Aw, hell, I like you, man.” Valeria started to talk and draw diagrams. The other woman chatted with Taverner-Boniface-Kromand, though her attention kept straying. The barmaid waited in amiable patience.

LATER.

R
UPERT
and Will came into the taproom, cleansed, remarkably refreshed, the former regal, the latter gawky in robes of timeless cut but many colors. They paused at the entrance. Rupert’s glance was caught by a picture unlike most of the portraits, landscapes, and action scenes around: a colored print of a glossy kind new to him, eerily beautiful in its vista of a starry night wherein floated a branded silvery globe encompassed by shimmering rings.

The landlord beckoned. “Ah, welcome, guests,” he hailed. “Come take your ease and drink. What is your pleasure?”

“Beer!” said the two like a single mouth.

The landlord chuckled. “I thought ’twould be.”

Rupert led the way to the hearth. “You’re far too kind, good Master Taverner,” he said.

“Nay, Highness, I’m a fat and cunning spider, albeit male, which weaves a subtle web bedewed with ale and wine and stronger waters, and thus ensnares a singing swarm of lives, to batten on the fables that they bear.” The landlord waved at armchairs. “Do join us. Oh, but first I must present you.” He spoke to the woman, with an appropriate gesture:
“Rupertus, filius comitis palatini Rheni, et Guillermus, miles et famulus suus.”
To the men: “And this is Clodia Pulcher, come from Rome.”

Will leered at her. Rupert was dumfounded. “That Clodia—Catullus’s Lesbia?” he faltered. (His host nodded.) “But she is dead these sixteen hundred years!”

“Not in the world that is her own, my lord. And here may come, from every time and clime, aye, every cranny of reality, whoever finds a way to find the door and brings uncommon tales wherewith to pay.” Taverner winked. “She is an often guest, our Clodia: tonight
in disappointment growing sulky till your arrival. Sit ye, sirs, I pray.”

Rupert curbed himself, bowed over the woman’s hand, kissed it, and greeted her:
“Salve, domina; ad servitium tuum.”

She beamed and purred in reply,
“Oh! Loqueris latine?”

Rupert shrugged.
“Aliquantulum, domina.”
Too bemused to struggle further with the language, especially when his pronunciation and, no doubt, grammar were so unlike hers, he settled his great frame beside the landlord’s.

The barmaid arrived with two brimful tankards. She curtsied as she handed one to Rupert, saying, “Here’s for your Highness.” Giving Will the other, she added more casually, “And the same for thee. I hope ’twill smack you well.”

“I thank thee, goodwife,” said Rupert absently.

Will picked a chair next to Clodia’s, though her attention remained on his master. Goggle-eyed, he little marked what a noble brew he drank.

Valeria nudged Holger. “Let’s join the party for a while,” she suggested.

“I could use a break,” he agreed. “You know, I damn near flunked differential equations in college, and now you spring this stuff on me.”

She threw him a sharp glance. “Look, friend,” she said, “given your background, you ought to know already that God never felt obliged to make the universes easy for us to understand.”

“Or easy in any way,” he sighed.
“Naa, da,
let’s go.” He put pipe in mouth, tankard in fist, and sauntered along.

Clodia, who had been getting no response from Rupert, ignored Valeria but turned the full battery on Holger. He gulped. “Twenty lashes with a wet eyeball,” Valeria muttered. To Rupert and Will: “Good evening, gentlemen.”

The prince rose and bowed; his follower was too rapt. “If you’ll allow self-introduction … lady—” His voice trailed off.

She smiled. “Not used to women in slacks, are you?
Sorry. I’m Valeria Matuchek, from the United States of America, if that means anything to you.” She extended her hand. He hung fire a moment, decided there could be no harm in showing her a courtesy to which she might not be entitled, and kissed it as he had Clodia’s. “Hey!” she said. “You know, you’re the first man I’ve ever met who could do that with real authority?”

Rupert straightened, to tower above her and reply, “I do not comprehend, fair damosel.”

“Our accents are sort of thick, mutually, aren’t they? You sound a bit like Holger—here, Holger Carlsen, from Denmark, though he’s spent a lot of time in my own country, on a different hyperplane.”

The two big men clasped hands. “I’m Rupert, of the Rhine Palatinate,” the Cavalier said, seeking to establish good relations. “My mother’s mother was a Danish princess—Anne, queen to James of Scotland and of England, two countries which have been close friends with Denmark since days of Hamlet, if not further yet.”

Holger raised brows. “Hamlet?”

Valeria shushed him, urged him into a seat, and took one herself opposite Rupert. “Suppose we swap information,” she advised. “We haven’t got such an awfully long time for that; better headlong then hesitant. You’re from the Rhineland, did you say, Rupert?”

“By right of blood alone—a stuff more thick than water, goes the adage, but too thin to mortar soil in firmness ’neath my claim,” the prince answered wryly. “At present, as the nephew of King Charles, I’m fighting on his side against revolt. Mine English friend and I were lorn in Wales, beset by Puritans and other dogs, when we got … guidance … to this happy place.”

Valeria sat upright. “Wait a minute! King Charles—Puritans—you mean Roundheads?” (He nodded.)
“When
are you from? I mean, what date would you say it is?”

“Why-y … I’ve lost track of what it is exactly—but August, sixteen hundred forty-four—”

“Ahhh,” she exulted. A slender fist clenched on the arm of her chair. “How much do you know about the situation—parallel universes and all that jazz—Nothing, h’m? Well, look, Rupert, I’m from America. You
know America, don’t you? Where I come from, it’s independent countries. And … when I left home, the year was 1974. Holger, there, left in 1950—but not the same 1950 as I was busy being born in.”

Rupert grew most quiet. “This well’s too deep for Will,” complained Fairweather. Turning to Clodia, who was obviously furious that neither Rupert nor Holger paid her any special heed, he added slyly, “And eke for thee?” Her glance crossed his and came to rest.

Taverner leaned back, ankles crossed, fingers bridged, altogether delighted. The fire was burning down. A gnomish figure bustled from the kitchen doorway to lay on more wood. The barmaid took empty vessels with an equal clatter, filled and returned them.

“You’re from tomorrow, then,” Rupert said low, “as Clodia is from the ancient past; and distant lands?”

“Not quite,” Valeria denied. “I’m not sure how well I can get the idea across, but I’ll try. Look, you were born into the world you know. It has such-and-such qualities—geography, astronomy, laws of nature, kinds of life; people, nations, societies; a past, a present, and a future growing out of these. Right?” (Rupert nodded.) “Well, imagine some important event had turned out differently in the past. A battle lost instead of won, that kind of thing. Give me an example.”